Category Archives: Jesus
As Jesus Walked
“Remember the little church where Dad preached
that walking with Jesus was an adventure?”
my sister Rachel asks after the funeral.
Fearful that she is going to become maudlin,
I turn my face to the wall and say nothing.
“Come on,” she pleads. “Don’t you remember?”
“What if I do? Then what?”
“There is no ‘what,’” she says. “I just feel
so lost and alone now that Dad’s gone,
and I thought that remembering something concrete
from his preacher days might help both of us.”
“Well, you thought wrong!” I snap. “I’m
not looking for signs and wonders
to multiply like loaves and fishes.
I don’t need a myriad reassurances
that Dad has gone to some so-called ‘better place.’
There is no better place.
Wherever I am is the place.
He’ll be with me in Mexico when I stumble, weeping,
through the cobbled streets of San Miguel,
and when I come back and circle the block on my morning walk—
if you let him go.
Free him from the prison of your memory
so that he can walk with me
as Jesus walked with his disciples by the sea.”
© 2011 by Magical Mystical Teacher
Imprecation
To the thief who stole my guitar—
I know that Jesus enjoins me to turn the other cheek
and to pray for those who persecute me;
but this morning, still grieving my loss,
I prefer to live in the Old Testament, not the New,
and like the prophets of old, I have a vision for you:
May someone drive bamboo splinters under your fingernails
so that every strum of the stolen strings is exquisite agony.
May you live in constant fear that your deed will find you out.
May you hear voices accusing you in the night,
and may images of the torments of hell disturb your sleep.
May only weeds sprout in your garden,
and no beans or corn or squash grow there ever again.
May peaceful, holy moments flee from your life like dust before the wind.
May regret pierce your soul like ten thousand rusty knives,
with no one to stanch the bleeding.
And if ever you are caught,
may you be locked so long in a fortress
that you never walk out alive.
May the jangle of the jailer’s keys
be the first music you hear in the morning
and the last notes you hear at night.
And may I be privileged to hear your death rattles
just before the jailers carry you out feet first
to dump you in an unmarked grave.
So be it.
Amen.
© 2011 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More Wordle 15 with words from Wallace Stevens here
More The Poetry Pantry #60 here
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