Poems from Vigilance

The Cup Passes By

Last night I dreamed of my crucifixion.

No, not exactly that.
There was the reddish-brown,
brownish-black cross,
smooth wood and hard corners
held by a mound of earth.
There was the voice of God around me,
a soft booming, a fathomable incomprehensibility.
There there was me
bending with fear,
averting my eyes
from the dull light reflecting from the beams.
There was the voiceless, faceless crowd.
They left me alone.

And I, with the command the climb
and the power to say no,
choose dissent
and woke to shame.

The Heat Sign

Texas summer.  You have to be here
to know just what that's like.
Each year I remember a sign
outside an old Baptist church
that read, "You think it's hot here?"
and chuckle uncomfortably,
grateful for my car's air conditioner.

But sometimes I sweat anyway.
The man on the radio
just announced the obvious:
"It's hot out there, 102.
Now let's get back to the jazz!"
Even he can't know
there are fires winter cannot put out.

That's both good and bad.
And neither.  I guess it depends
on the source of the heat.
I know I need lots of water
and more than an occasional breeze
or else signs blur in sizzling waves.

Music to read by
for my children

When I was a small boy,
I had no music of my own.
Reading in my room,
I'd hear Johnnys Cash and Mathis
coming through the closed door.

When I got my own records
I'd listen to them on my brother's stereo.
Unless I wanted to read.
I could not do both at once.
I was read or pretend to be a rock star.
Most books waited for me at the clean library.

In college I found Bach
and annoyed my roomate
with quiet guitars and emotive violins.
Everything had to be in order: bed made,
desk cleared, volume set.
Then I walked a portion of my way in thin pages.

Moments ago, putting my kids down for a nap,
I sat in the middle of their cluttered room,
after "lay back down" and "don't touch your sister"
and a grinned at, croaked out lullaby,
and lost myself in a book of poems
surrounded by faint and tiny snores.