Rushing whitewater
Breaking over my face
The wave collapses
Wiping my eyes clear
Taking a video with my iPhone
(hope the water doesn’t ruin it)
Look around—everyone’s here
How could it be?
My eyes well with water,
For once I can see:
What God has done,
What it means to be happy.
Seek after the Lord,
While He can be found
“For God so loved the world”
For God Himself to say it,
How could I ignore it?
Side-by-side
Rocking chairs
Laughing softly
Making plans,
Throwing plans away
Would it really have changed anything
If you had said it somewhat differently?
I’ve forgotten how to draw —
Sketching plain lines converging,
Tacitly turning the wrist to cover the page,
Thoughts that can’t be captured otherwise.
Patiently staining the outline of her eyes,
Giving attention to detail I can’t explain.
I sweep the azurite chalk along those lines
Those ocean, crystal eyes
But I’ve forgotten how to draw.
The worthless habit spans into the canvas —
Would it really have changed anything
If you chose your words more carefully?
Compassing the arc of her shoulder
Follows to her soft hands,
Inking the light tone of each palm
That she held up to cover the sun from her eyes.
“It’s bright, but not so bright that I can’t reach out and touch it.”
I tried to capture those confusing words
That seemed to make sense somehow,
But I’ve forgotten how to draw.
You can only be so much there
Then never there again
To try to isolate the moment,
To value it as it should be
As she looks into your eyes,
Her smile — its warm glow,
As he tells you how long it’s been,
His voice of lonely sorrow
This moment, the one you embody
This place in space-time with another next to you
It can’t be remade, or recreated
Just incongruently remembered
No matter how hard you try and how much you love her,
You can only be so much there, then never there again
Just the same that your ability to remember,
To be present, is not perfect, incomplete
Like grieving the loss of a moment.
Not the moment itself, but the person you were there with
I’ve attended the graveside of many of those moments
It might be less of an obituary and more of a eulogy
Lord, I don’t know how to say what I’m thinking
These moments are Yours
That You blessed me to be in them
To be as present as I could
Within these shadows of heaven.
The moment has passed you by
You waited, but it moved on too quickly
It’s not that life’s any worse now,
You’ve forgotten just how to be happy.