Making Lists

For the women of Nepal who have never met a man.


I have sold every instinct
for a chance to be closer
where your pulse beats
my shoulders like a crumpled fist.

I have shaved my beard
put chains on my wrists.
I have sold every instinct.
I have burned every list.

Now there are flowers drying
in my palm like dead spiders.
There are bones whirling
inside my skull writing
a new list.

Your pulse beats closer.
I can feel it above the rattling
of bones, of shackles
of Pashupatinath’s fires
my shaven face scratching
out lists on your body.

1. I am not a man.
2. You are not a woman.
3. God is not.

Each time I burn a list
I pull back the curtain.

Each time I pull the curtain
a new list is written.

The Wall

I am on the wall

dividing a night of rest

from the appearance of it all.

The wall begins to fall

in violent silence.

I watch it lean slowly.

Here is sleep.

I watch it gain speed.

Here is sleep like a curtain

in front of me.

I am Moses in the Red Sea

eyes wide on the inside

reaching a hand towards the veil

of water rushing in stillness.

I have rushed in stillness too.

I have been like water

churning without flowing

like sleep

vibrating without going.

Now I stand before

one thousand photocopies

of my face, each generation cloudier

and less pleased

as if perfection is to just be,

unchanging, exactly the same.

The devil is a good marksman.

I have been paralyzed by the fear

that all men are created equal.

I have seen too many people

unencumbered by the numbering

of failures

1.

Let every tear be flowing

for in that movement

I can feel the trembling

of continents.

2.

May my dreams be remembered

like the scent of moist earth

drying in a cemetery.

3.

Let me hold you close.

On the day I asked you to be mine

I tied you to a bench.

I return every day to find

my best friend in the clench

of a gilded cage

as if allowing us to change

might pinch me to awaken.

I am covering myself in sleep

like a thin, white sheet.

I have fallen asleep just to greet

your face with a kiss.

In sleep we are thirteen months old

born on the day we met

and I am comforted by my face

now an infant's

my voice gooey as I stroke

your face with the back of my hand.

Maybe in twenty years we'll marry

maybe we'll stop fussing about problems

we're too young to solve.

Maybe I'll just love you

just love you

just love you

until I awake

to just

love you

again.

No More Leaving

by Hafiz

Some point

Your relationship

With God

Will

Become like this:

Next time you meet Him in the forest

Or on a crowded city street

There won't be anymore

"Leaving."

That is,

God will climb into

Your pocket.

You will simply just take

Yourself

Along!

Step it Up, Adventism

"It is clearly taught in the Scriptures that the wearing of jewelry is contrary to the will of God." (SDA Church Manual p. 176)

I found this quote today during a search in the SDA church manual on the church's stance on jewelry. I wasn't planning on agreeing with the church on this issue, but I guess I never thought it would be this bad. Frankly, I'm disappointed and ashamed of the SDA church right now.

I'm not disappointed because I want the freedom to wear jewelry or because I was hoping to find allowance for body piercings and a new pair of diamond studs. I'm disappointed because the Seventh-day Adventist church is claiming to know the will of God is every situation regarding a certain issue. Oh please.

I would love to write about how unclear scripture is regarding jewelry. I would love to cite the examples where the prodigal son was given a ring by the Father, or where in Ezekiel 16 God adorns the bride with jewels. I would love to write about how 1 Timothy 2:9, the verse used as evidence against jewelry, includes braided hair in the same admonishment, so it would be foolish to reject jewelry without also rejecting French braids.

But let's be real. These things don't matter. Earrings, necklaces, bracelets, hair, and clothes are going to neither condemn nor save you. The way to salvation is Christ. Even if we called every form of adornment a sin, cutting them out would not give us salvation.

Instead, we need make sure we are running from the things that separate us from Christ's salvation. Things like playing God, prideful condescension, closed-minded study of scriptures, self-interest, and how about claiming to know the will of God in every instance?

I'm not saying the Adventist church has separated itself from God. I'm not going to avoid setting foot in an SDA sanctuary for fear of being judged. But I am disappointed and hurt by the church that I grew up in--that I learned truth from.

Step it up, Adventism. You're better than this.

Psalms

i.

I wander through dark alleys at night.

I pick fights with shadows in moonlight.

Where is the sun?

Every god I see

is made of glass or circuit-boards

mass graves or power cords.

Where are you, God?

When I eat, I hunger for you

because I know your feet are not shod

with the red sewers of genocide

and the golden stars of human pride.

If you still care

please speak the words

I’m still there.

ii.

I woke up falling

first through streaming clouds.

I screamed out loud.

My mouth was dry.

I looked back at the sky.

Forgive me, Lord

but there was no reply.

I looked down while cities became larger

waiting for your voice to say

no more.

You gave me no choice.

I woke up on the floor.

iii.

I watched the sunrise

from the summit’s eyes.

The frost on my jacket

clarified into droplets

when the glare hit it.

The night was cold

but its grip grew old.

My bones were rattled with chills

and my eyes spoke vigils—

praying to see.

Now the day is an infant

and though it cries to me

it brings the joyful siren

of new life.

iv.

I am the creator

of a great tragedy.

See how the words are greater

than I can bear

how the air is dense

with the awareness

of my errors.

I am the conductor

of a choir without accord.

I construct discord.

Hear how my lyrics destruct us

how the best pages are lost

from my capstone opus.

You are the healer

of a world without connection.

Feel how you sew vessels

together across seas

how you wrestle to appease

our thirst for your affection.

v.

This plane is climbing

in a thunderstorm.

I feel like the wings are torn.

Every sky-flicker is finding

myself in greater light.

My face feels like the accumulation

of electricity and adrenaline.

It looks peaceful.

When the doors open

I can see my breath billow in the cold.

I can hear nothing but the thrashing

of high speeds.

It sounds peaceful.

When I jump out

I am sliding across a great membrane

tilting forever away from the door.

It feels peaceful.

Today you are a nylon God

who upholds me.

vi.

I am held by a rhythm.

Like with the sigh of a forest

I am immobilized within

a movement of sound

in

out

in and out

in then out

I breathe like the ocean tides.

Your rhythm is my moon

drawing air from my side.

I have joined a festival of drumming.

It beats a blessed discussion.

I am quickly becoming

an instrument of your percussion.

Vignettes

i.

I met you in a cornfield.

You were looking for your God.

I was thinking of how things sprout

standing in a mound of seedpods.

ii.

You said, Look at all these colors.

Have you seen a month like this?

I looked at the dogwood flowers

and thought of things I'd miss.

iii.

You said, Everything is changing

but I've never wanted more.

I heard you say, I'm leaving.

Then it began to pour.

iv.

I said, It's just like autumn

to be showing up like this,

filled with oreos and jugs of tea.

Then we began to kiss.

v.

We were wrapped in coats of feathers

making angels in the snow.

You licked frost from off my eyelids.

Then I began to know.

vi.

I said, Look at the sunrise.

See the boldness in its arms.

The people that it touches

it disarms.

vii.

My words were like an airborne stone.

They left your windows shattered.

I called myself a twelve-year-old.

You said, That's never mattered.

viii.

I woke up in a hammock.

You were breathing at my side.

I felt you hold me firmly.

My hands were open wide.

The Greatness of Our God

Give me eyes to see
More of who You are
May what I behold,
still my anxious heart.
Take what I have known
And break it all apart
For You my God, are greater still.

No sky contains,
No doubt restrains,
All You are,
The greatness of our God.
I spend my life to know,
And I'm far from close
To all You are,
The greatness of our God.

Give me grace to see
Beyond this moment here.
To believe that there
Is nothing left to fear.

That You alone are high above it all.
For You my God, are greater still.

No sky contains,
No doubt restrains,
All You are,
The greatness of our God.
I spend my life to know,
And I'm far from close
To all You are,
The greatness of our God.

And there is nothing
That can ever separate us.
There is nothing that can ever
separate us from Your love.
No life, no death, of this I am convinced.
You my God, are greater still.

And no words can say, or song convey,
all You are the greatness of our God.
I spend my life to know,
And I'm far from close
to all You are,
the greatness of our God.

I Am Like You

I am like you.
Sometimes I spin the world
with an eye-closed whirl.

I point and touch the ripples of a pink continent.
I fill my carry-ons with fear
and return with the seasons as a souvenir.

I taste the Florida in oranges.
I smell green waves of the South China Sea
with every mug of tea.

Fall from the sky with me.
Where we land the earth is new.
I am like you.

Sometimes you say, let’s hide beneath this forest.
It is dark and the wind blows
through the fields where no one goes.

Tonight, let’s take shelter in moon shadows.
Let our eyes be either closed or locked
let our company be dead wood and living rock.

Tomorrow we will walk to a new village
enter like a circus in a small box
leave shoes at the door, make friends in our socks.

Our photo albums will get filled with mirrors.
We will use coat pegs for hanging our full hearts
each fresh dessert will be a failed new start.

You are like me.
Sometimes you see our coasts as razor wire
and try to put out waterbuckets with fire.

You chase gravediggers at night
and fill their holes with poems
about soldiers coming home.

We will come home someday too.
There will be much eye contact with you
and dancing when we do.

I will carry you through the door.
The space inside will seem like too much
on the day we will first touch.

You will be sleepy from the sound of rain.
When the morning fog is new
I’ll whisper again, I am like you.