My Mirage

My Mirage

Scattered lavishly across the road ahead,
It glistened. I know what I saw.
I don’t care that the water is radiated heat.
What is radiated heat, anyway?
Who cares about radia—-Who cares?

I know what I saw…
Reflections in the water…
Distant clouds, grey-blue mountains…
Hazy skies with red scribblings…
White silos and the thick uneven border of trees on the horizon,
Cool water.

I know what I…saw…What happened?
Now, it’s gone.
Strange. It was there, I promise. Really.
Oh! Up there, farther on.
I lost it, momentarily. Something made it move.
But, it’s still there…bigger and better than ever.

I just have to be patient. People will try
To talk me out of it, but they don’t know.
I see love up ahead. Unconditional acceptance.
I will never be any happier. My way, my say.
My choice, my body, my life. The real me.

Get out of my way.
I know where I’m going.
One day it will stop moving.
I will drink that water, one day.
I promise. I don’t care what you say.
I know what I saw.
Mirages are real.

Perfect Love Casts Out Fear

Like a crystalline ice sculpture,
Jagged edges filed and pointed ends rounded to conform,
Fear lay heavy in the pit of my stomach.
I closed my eyes and narrowed eyes stared back at me through chiseled stone;
Fingers in my ears, creepy voices still squeezed through twisted sneers and ridiculed me.
I smiled tentatively at blank expressions and balding foreheads,
Knowing that they only obscured malicious thoughts
Portending my death.
Imagining freedom, I soon saw shadowy figures that flitted in my peripheral vision,
Swiftly disappearing when seen. Inexplicable footsteps constantly unnerved me.
There was no rest; the icy numbness of fear would not relent.

The metamorphoses of fear have no limit.
Proud towers, marbled warriors, pulsating neons and dusty stack rooms,
Beasts and demons, men and angels, dreams and visions,
Points on maps and matrices,
Objects dead or alive possessed by fear cause fear.
Beauty’s guts, noxious fumes of Raphael’s saccharine oils,
Ripped and wadded compositions of note-short masterpieces,
Lying dead on the floor, fear is perfection convulsed into dread.
I have felt it all. Formulas fail.
Laughter does not signal fear’s absence,
Nor tears its presence.

I was afraid; until another set of eyes peered out from my own and,
Confidently stared back at the chiseled stone.
I was afraid until another voice, using my vocal chords, spoke back to the scorners,
His forceful smile animated my own lips,
Furrowed the foreheads and countered the evil thoughts; shadows ceased and silenced.
Love, proven by some wood and a handful of nails,
Ice-melting warmth that brooked no challenge to its power,
Over-powering softness that resisted the menace of hammers,
Even as it accepted their earth-shaking blows.
The metamorphoses surrendered, their powerless illusions exposed.
Perfect Love is a person. He made the fear disappear.

The Listener

The Listener

I listened.
He seemed nice enough. I could read hurt in his face.
He said he just needed someone to talk to. Since I knew what that was like, I said yes.
I listened.

He opened up the secret wrongs against him. He told me sordid tales that shocked and angered me.
People had lied about him, maligned him, rejected him.
I listened on with innocent curiosity.
Sympathy rushed from my heart to his as he talked.
I put my hand on his shoulder as an unspoken word of encouragement.
But he would not be consoled.
And I listened on.

How could anyone treat a human being like this?
How could a Christian destroy another Christian like this?
This is not right, I said. Somebody ought to pay.
I leaped to take up his cause. I assured him that I had some connections.
I would get his story out. If I have to go all the way to the top, I determined to get justice for him.
So I did. Now, all I can say is that I listened.
But I wish I hadn’t.

I soon found out all the missing details.
The wind dissipated from my sails as the real truth slowly emerged.
Like a fool, I thought myself better than those over him.
I believed that I could understand and have compassion where they could not.
At some point, another thought should have occurred to me.
Why didn’t something he said, some gesture, some look catch my eye?
Why wasn’t I uncomfortable with his bitterness, his hatred?
Why didn’t I consider that there could be another side to his story?
Why didn’t I think that I could be manipulated, lied to, set up?
Why was I so willing to drink the spewings of a bitter fountain?
Did he prey upon my own pride? Did he expose a root of bitterness in my own heart?
He was a complaining Cain, an agitated Esau, a rebellious Korah
Drawing me into his distortions and wrongs.

My unwitting listening added credence to a malicious scheme.
He sported my name in his win column.
Never again.
Those who bypass their spiritual authority and come to me must never find a listening ear.

The Puzzle

The Puzzle

Cambered and bulged, interlocking pieces
Find their mates and secure unique relationships.
The puzzle is still incomplete.

Smudges of blue sky and wisps of magnolias hanging on sticks of wood,
Or perhaps brick sills and trim boards painted white, decorate their fragmented existence.
Tentatively, they ask, “Are you…?”

A chaotic universe of lost friends and lovers orbits around them.
Oddities of configuration anxiously await discovery,
Overlooked and pushed away.

Turned, eyed, measured and examined time and again, success evaporates.
Hopes rise; bitter disappointment follows. No fit, no niche, no welcoming arms
Enfold them into their bosom.

Impatiently forced pieces create false illusions. Matching colors lie on
Incongruous elements. Promising partnerships, all-but-certain fits are misfits,
Momentarily quickening the pulse, ending in misery.

The tedium continues for pieces and puzzle. Maddening trials, frustrating perceptions,
Sure that no place exists to be interlocked and secure. But, there will be a last piece, and
It will find its home. He promised.

Tree Planters

Big oaks and cottonwoods dominate Olander’s tree population, no doubt owing their existence to the forgetfulness of squirrels and the snows of cottonwood seeds that inundate the Midwest every June. Park walkers know about other species too, like Douglas Firs, Honey Locusts, Sycamores, Sassafras, Black Walnuts and a variety of maples and evergreens. These weren’t all random plantings. Tree planters, themselves a rare species, envision those legendary poems of God where most only see empty space. They measure time in decades and centuries, not months and years. The hurried pace that pushes of the rest of us has no effect on them, and they make time their friend. I envy them. I love trees too, but I lack the interminable patience of the people who plant them. Today, when I see a tree by the trail or across the lake, I see heart…a life…a planter’s statement of faith in their vision. God, grant me the faith to plant a vision today.