Startled by Existence

Hum i lity: 6/01

Sometimes I get jealous of other people and wish I were like them. I sometimes even wish everyone were the same, but one day I thought about my wish and decided it was a horribly stupid wish. On the school playground everyone would play the same thing. You couldn’t find your home because every house in the world would be the same. After I thought of all this destruction I liked myself more. I thought there is only one me and I am the only person who can be that person..

The Silly Wish – by Kayla Jordan (5th grade, school essay)

I have seen the naked lobes

of Pentecostal women at the Wal-Mart Store,

Their unadorned necks and broad foreheads

set, like polished alabaster

lifted lovely from the doilies.

 

I have seen a dog

radiant with pleasure

at the fact of my existence.

 

I have seen a shadow

tangle with my feet or fade;

He has stretched but never strayed.

We parted for some seconds once – on a high river bluff

I saw him emulate a diving swan,

But I pierced him

Like a bull’s-eye

on the water’s top.

 

Note:

I’ve never seen my shadow

Join the shadow of a bullet,

or that of a falling house.

 

(Selah.)

 

I have heard

A guitar fluoresce

In my ear,

Felt a flute flutter, dance, or curl

Like streamers

In my brain:

 

I have framed the moving

Ever evaporating earth

At least 36,000 times.

It goes with the job, and my love.

 

Indeed,

I have raised my glass at the sky;

Channeled particles and waves

Into my Nikon tele-porting--time catching

Space-mashing--memory enhancing –

light encoding – sun imploding

trap.

 

I have pressed

Fragile disappearing blossoms

Into the future,

placed huge mountains in a box

I have surveyed the tossed aftermath of pain,

and talked to a woman who rode

a funnel-cloud for two hundred feet.

 

I have stood at the top of the isle

Over four hundred times,

As some angel of a woman

gave her eyes to me

(flash)

And then her soon-to-be husband.

 

I have stood two feet away

From the most powerful man on earth --

No one in between.

He ignored me as I clicked –

I thought of leaping up and laying hands:

“Hey, I’m praying for you brother”

but I figure the guys in black

might misunderstand, and drop me on the spot.

 

Three hours later

I would photograph

The richest man in America;

He was shy and uncomfortable

Before my lens –

and I wondered how he knew

who were his friends.

 

Indeed,

I have photographed

The un-powerful, and un-rich;

A mass of un-shy children spilling

Like maniac pups into my wide angle-lens,

They stretched their septums forward

Into the glass like horses,

Rolling eyes and making faces,

Pushing me over, in the slums of Juarez.

 

I have also lived to photograph my children.

--

 

Could it really be that

I have seen three persons

Slip into the world --

bud and build like nimbus clouds

play and argue;

Move like ballerinas

in the living room to the booming

a two hundred dollar stereo.

 

I have tasted milk

From a hidden source.

I have felt the breasts

Of my beloved

Lap against my chest

Like the wake from a boat.

I have seen a woman

who once screamed:

“Don’t you ever say you love me” --

take my hand

and apologize for saying “damn.”

 

I have seen an encroaching kingdom

Building turrets in our hearts,

The grand physician

fixing broken history.

 

I have seen

The sun on the sky

Behind the fog

All clean and blonde

Like a compact disk

 

I have heard

whispers from another world.

I have eaten with the King of Kings.

I have talked to myself

And had a good conversation.

 

It is true:

I never asked to be born, but if I could

flicker into life for just one moment

in order to answer the question,

How in the world, would I

having tasted awareness

then refuse?

 

Could I – having been me,

ever wanted

to be anyone else?

 

I know my pains,

and mine have been enough to question

my continuance, once or twice …

but then, I don’t know yours, and

am not sure, that I could ever

take that risk …

 

So before I swap my life, for any other

I ask,

Would he come

with salvation or a camera;

Would he have a taste for small odd verses?

Would he come

with my same wife, or mom, or kids?

 

Would he have you

as friends?

 

(pause)

 

(Thank YOU, Thank You .... Thank You very much)

God has pressed his finger

into my heart

parting resilient flesh,

the everlasting groom

making ready to display

his everlasting love.

April 4, 2002

to Kerry, my beloved (12 years in)

I’ll break down, if that’s what it takes … I’ll be weak if it shows your strength … and I’ll be glad, at the end of the exchange if You are all that’s left.

Maggie B, -- All that’s Left, from the extrorinary album “What Kind of Love”)

It’s a strange thing,

launching landing-pads into the future,

for a rocket ship

still in the box.

 

Who were we

to say “I do”

having never done.

Who were we to know

that “for better or for worse”

might really mean the “worse”

and a little of the poorer.

 

Who were we to know

that we would need

every ounce of promise

(and some carnal pride)

to keep us through the nights

of hurricane and ice.

Who were we

to know, that we didn’t know

a thing of love

or the poverty of self.

 

Who were we

that we didn’t know,

that we could be

so damn-right selfish

or perverse.

Indeed, Who were we

to think we had it in us --

To shine, were other folks

had tripped,

or ripped in two.

 

But here we are

facing the descent -

together,

falling at a future

that we dreamed

would be our future from the start.

Could it be

that I have come to love

My Love.

 

Could it be

that we have tasted mercy.

(2/2000)

When the meadows laugh with lively green, and the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene

When Marry and Susan and Emily, with their sweet round mouths sing “Ha, Ha, He”

(William Blake, Laughing song, excerpt)

I see the joy of Jesu shed

like water through

a shower head, or

better illustrated by

that funny fir-ball fountain on the square

where perforated tubes

jettison and spray

a fog of animated water.

 

I hear the joy of Jesu trilled

through living pores,

(a funny fir-ball planet laced with kids)

mouths bent back, like reaching birds

voices warped and breaking:

a conduit for living water.

 

A spear once split his side

but it would split with laughter …

If our world can not contain

the tally of His mighty works,

will all these mouths

of bitsy teeth, or parts

of snagle-lip and spit on the gums

be able to express his joy?

 

Here is the joy of Jesu:

One billion children

on the bounce

all laugh eyed and goofy.

Hop, skip, jump …

all rollicking and rolled,

fantastic hoots, irrational jokes

about stiff language:

"Do you love cake? Then you should marry it!"

 

Ha Ha hha ha ha ha.

 

Here is the joy of Jesu:

"I see you behind my hands," tap your shoulder

on the other side and run

or beg a chase around the Monkey bars:

Nana Nana na na they all sing:

The first universal sentence.

 

Here is the joy of Jesu:

Whistle din upon the dawn,

some trillion birds in pouring song,

blend monkeys and hyenas too

in one colossal laugh.

 

Here is the joy of Jesu

shining on, or through

a single face.

Anna's eyes are lifted up

all jolly with the tease.

She holds a toad toward my face

knowing it will make me squirm.

 

Here is the joy of Jesu:

Held in check, against he Hoover Dam

of present tense, or recent past;

For we esteemed Him smitten,

man of Sorrow, friend of grief.

Here is the Joy of Jesu

Veiled:

 

How should we feel

if in our sin

or varied acts of groping idiocy

we should here him laugh?

 

He knows the healing end

and the joke that is on us.

 

Here is the joy of Jesu

Squeezed Like a belly laugh

that will not hold:

A smile or a wink, a low

chuckle dressed as thunder

on the wind.

 

For, if we've seen his pleasure

pressed through these:

Mouths of babes

and barking pups and bear-kind on the roll...

 

How much more

will this joy be

when HE,

the maker of the giggle-flex

or adolescent squeal

steals the show, and splits the sky

with pent up righteous zeal.

 

Here is the Joy of Jesu:

Calling on His blushing bride.

He has hinted long enough

and now makes ready to display

His eternal tender love

with a Ha-Ha

Hallelujah.