Give me new paper. Fresh, crisp
and smooth, so the ink
shall not run if I must write.

Before it is finished...

I have come to touch you.
To put my fingers in your hair - oh!
it must be thick and strong
does it stretch or curl? - run,
through parting until somewhere, there,
I feel little depressions where a crown was once fitted.

I have come to touch you.
To run the side of my thumb down your spine - oh!
It must be straight as an arrow
each vertebrae precisely placed - stroke
and find a story everywhere, there,
written across your back in rivers of scars and hills and mountains of knotted flesh.

I have come to touch you.
To slide my palms along your shoulders - oh!
how strong they must be, they bore, the tree and the world - rub
gently down your arms until there, where,
your slender wrists met the forge, there,
there is my heart become stone.

I have come to touch you.
To bow low and reach for your feet - oh!
how beautiful they must be, we,
deign to wash them? - touch
the tender place there, somewhere,
where in roses
sprung in indescribable perfection of
torn tissue and ripped muscle, spouting
spewing, spitting blood, blossomed
everlasting life.

I know
deep inside, strong inside, unshakable, immovable
that you. have me.
Lungs burning body cringing every hair reaching for you.
I fly for you.

You know
I write you poems because
deep inside, strong inside, unshakable, immovable
you are beautiful
Only, now, your eyes explode me your voice unmakes.

But enough.
of seeing
and hearing.

Now come.
touch me.
Break my sternum crack my ribs rip through my lungs pound
diamond to dust.
crush.

So I can finally give you the one thing you ever wanted.

Psalm 51:17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Confessing

Psalm 139 has been one of my favourites for a while now. I relate to it so strongly that when I am lost for words and struggling to pray for myself, the psalmist seems to speak for me.

I'd been carrying an unidentifiable burden for about a week, and a few days ago, something finally triggered a total lock-down in my spiritual system. My body didn't want to cooperate either. And of course the judging little devil-voice told me it was sin: I must have done something wrong to feel this way. So I ran to the psalms and stumbled into chapter 32.

While I kept my silence, my body wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.
Then I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not hide my iniquity;
I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,"
and you forgave the guilt of my sin.

So I confessed. I got down on my knees with my face to the ground and prayed and confessed and prayed and confessed and begged and pleaded with God to take the trash away from me. I know the categories: sins of commission, sins of omission, known, unknown. You name it. I thought I was doing a pretty good job of cleansing myself.

Of course I'd forgotten we inevitably fail in that. Nothing changed. I went back to my good ol' 139 and started reading.

Now a lot of us know lines 13 and 14:

For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made..

I mean, I've got it underlined in purple in my NRSV and all. But what caught my eye that morning was 15 and 16:

My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.

Now I don't know what this says to you, but suddenly, I realized that I am not some flawed piece of God's creation that He was making with His hands while watching TV or something. He wasn't just practicing on me. As He made me, I was not hidden, His eyes beheld me. He observed, very carefully. And He appraised and approved every intricacy of my mind, every weave of my emotions, every line and molecule of my body.

And then you know what? He even wrote it all down before it was, just to make sure everything was perfect.

Oh look at me! Trying to fix it, trying to make sure it goes right. Dancing around in the gooey muck of my life, trying to hold it all together. And so proud of my shoddy work.

I didn't clean my life up that morning and I didn't suddenly see the light either, but I had a revelation. I am still struggling on my own strength. I don't still completely trust the man who made me. And I still have much to surrender.

I keep forgetting the latter part of 14:

Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.

God is breaking the box that I've been trying to put Him in.

I've tried to close Him up between a number of walls: prayer, worship music, bible reading, animated discussion and sermons. I seem to have decided I will not hear Him or see Him in any other situations, and that if I don't "feel" Him in the situations I've laid down, then something is wrong with me.

But He is breaking through that.

He is speaking to me, despite my lack of discipline. He is speaking to me through my illness. He is speaking to me in "sensible" thoughts. He is speaking to me.

He is telling me I have become religious. I have a system I've developed for myself. A system of rituals like prayer, worship, bible-study, cell and rules like not swearing, not listening to secular music and not dressing a certain way. They are drawing me away from Him because He is love and grace. And there is neither love nor grace in rituals and rules.

Sometimes, it really is about letting go. And that's why love and grace are so important. We let go, and by His grace we don't fall. We let go, and in love, we are saved.

How terrifyingly simple.

How God-like!

We know not what we do

I lie, knees folded, my

Face to the ground

While I, knuckles clenched white

Cover my head, my

Spine exposed.

I pray,

“Lord,

I cry, knees folded, my

Face to the ground

While I, knuckles clenched white

Cover my head, my

Spine exposed, screaming

“Do I not hate those who hate you with a perfect hatred!?

“Waiting,

Knees folded, my

Face to the ground

While I, knuckles clenched white

Cover my head, my

Spine exposed,

For your wrath as it flows,

River, sea, storm grows

Waves rising, reaching for the sky, scraping, screeching, screaming as

Thunder roars

Pours walls of fire

Devouring everything in its way.”

I am safe, knees folded, my

Face to the ground

While I, knuckles clenched white

Cover my head, my

Spine exposed, whispering not but

From the depths of my being

Screaming

“SAVE ME!!!

“And in the eye of the storm I will be still and know that you are God.”

And the whip

Not still, quivering dried skin

Is raised, flung

 And I, knees folded, my

Face to the ground

While I, knuckles clenched white

Cover my head, my

Spine exposed,

Grit my teeth, waiting.

And the wind

Is flicked over my back

And I shudder knowing

That I felt nothing

Because it did not fall.

On me.

Steady

In the deep heart of the morning is that moment of unknown
Between sleep and waking on the edge of a dream
The fragile border of transparency
Between black and white

The storm swirls and the dawn will smudge in
The sun might seem not to shine
But in the deep heart of the morning you are there
And I will hold the hope.

Soul Food

The thing you’re not going to forget about this kitchen is that it has a lot of yellow.

Not the kind of bright yellow we usually associate with kitchens, but a deeper, almost ochre shade. It says something about how she loves: happily consuming all, yet deeply, committedly.

At the table against the wall is where we sit long after meals or tea, talking, laughing, teasing, arguing. I often accidently take the old man’s wooden stool before he gets there, and he will improvise. He and the two boys are gracious in this, making allowance in their home for people who don’t have a claim.

They share space and love like the sunlight that streams in, all day long, through the window framed by white-blue-green curtains. It glitters, bouncing off the floor, lighting the place up.

In the late morning and afternoon, when there’s work being done, the place is like a factory. Sizzling, bubbling, aluminum lids tapping against pots, constant chatter and worship music on the radio.

Sometimes it gets so hot that someone must go round the back door to let the bamboo blind down on the outside. This is the only time I am glad to be barefoot, when the cool cement tiles soothe our bodies, from the soles up.

Those already passed on are missed, their padding through, mewing, zipping between the table and stool legs as they get to bowls of food against the other wall.

Funny there were never any ants in their food but always some in ours.

In the cake cooling on the stove, in the ceramic jar of sugar, in the juice, with the cookies, the chocolate. There is obviously too much sweet stuff here, tempting the ants. I keep spotting them, like the boys sometimes joke they find funny stuff in the food.

“Oh, it’s alright to eat,” she says. “I pray over it as I cook.”

The old man laughs, his voice booming, and the table erupts.

About the other man…

 

It’s crazy what a song can do to you. I want to apologize.

I haven’t been exceptionally horrid I guess, considering I’ve been sick. It’s just difficult. You know, how you have a million things planned and you find that all that can actually be done is precisely nothing. First you lie on your butt, then you lie on your face, then on your favorite side, and then on your other favorite side and then you start wondering if you can lie on your head or something. And the sweating? It’s supposed to help get the bug out of your system but its just infuriating to be first cold, then hot, the cold, then hot, first dry, then soaked, then dry, then soaked. What happened to the middle ground!? I forget there’s no grey areas with you.

I know I should have been waiting for you. But its difficult. And sometimes, it’s just plain boring. So I start thinking. And when you’re sick, you don’t think straight. No, I’m not trying to justify myself or make excuses (only YOU do that) I’m just being real.

I tried to keep my mind on you. But honestly, I can’t remember the last time I saw you. I’ve forgotten what your voice sounds like. I’ve forgotten what it feels like when you touch me. Well, almost.

He’s just so much closer. And that makes it all that much easier. I’m sorry, but you’ve see him, you’ve seen what he does to me, and I kept you in the loop, so I might as well let you know – this is all your fault. You should have stopped me before it was too late. Why didn’t you do something? I mean, I don’t pretend to understand what you do, but I let you do it, don’t I?

Yes, I am petty. I am petty to blame you, I am petty to not take account for myself. I am petty for being a woman, petty for wanting a man that will stand next to me, hold me, smile at me, laugh with me. I am petty for loving that he’d hold my hair tight and kiss the corner of my mouth where I’d forgotten it burns. I am petty for finding reassurance in a voice that I can hear, petty for being pleasured by a form I can see and touch, petty for being a human with a body and a soul apart from the spirit that gives me life.

I am sorry I looked at what I saw. I am sorry I stared, and made him speak. I am sorry that when he spoke, I had to touch him and make sure. I am sorry that this still all about me.

All I have of you now is a vague memory of something I never perceived. Help me remember. Please.

Truth

But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor.

I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And this life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

FOR FREEDOM CHRIST HAS SET US FREE.

I will stand firm there, and not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
(Galatians)

He who planted the ear, does he not hear?
He who formed the eye, does he not see?
(Psalm 94)

Depart from me, all you workers of evil; for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.
(Psalm 6)

misChief.unCut

 

Wala Sathiya 2012 at UOP

In Equilibrium

Monday morning was super weather. The sun was out but there was considerable rain also, and the heat and humidity of Colombo mid-morning was lifted by the coolness of the drops of liquid breaking free of pregnant clouds. Such a long and ineffective sentence.

I sat on the front steps leading up to the old Walawwa where I’d spent the night, gazing through the lush mango and jack leaves now greener and looking heavier, for the water. Once in a while I’d suddenly find myself staring into the rays of rotating sun whizzing momentarily through the foliage to stun me. The gravel is purple-brown-orange. The picture is simple and serenely gorgeous.

Closer to me is a row of little plants with dripping flowers and rebellious buds. The tiny leaves are so gently and effortlessly curved that I wonder, as I often do, whether God caresses each and every one to just that way each morning. What love that must be!

The rain has stopped. On two of those God-finger-curled leaves I find droplets of water growing. This is an amazing thing. I think, “how many photographs I’ve seen with this exact image focused, shot, color-balanced, brightness-edited and published!” There is something so lethargic, stagnant and still about these pictures; even the ones with the bright sparkle hiding inside the droplet. How they all fail to capture the energy and intensity of the connection; the inevitable dependency.  But this leaf and this droplet are so flabbergastingly alive!

I am jubilant because there is life!

And then I think, which is it? Does the glittering droplet cling desperately to the thinning end of the leaf, or does it strain and strain to be free? Does it alone, or do they both?

“This, too, shall pass.”

Sometimes when things go wrong – or right, just not how you planned them – it’s a good idea to deal with shit before it hits the fan. Most times, it’s good to leave the world alone.

I develop this idiotic urge to verbal-puke when I am in a “rush”. This is what I am doing right now. Technically this is not true, since I am not quite in a “rush” right now. I just want to be, I want to create some drama for myself. This is usually just my personal universe of boredom escaping via my skin, but today it is utter dissatisfaction. No. Disillusionment.

It was not there.

I knew it was not there.

I knew it was possible it could be there. Now,

I know it is not there. Because,

It is not there.

How boring when you realize you really were not expecting the unexpected. How utterly drab to find your self among the masses. How blah that your imagination can’t run riot in your world anymore and turn your biology into a whirling cyclone of blood, bone and muscle. How clear that all this is so unimportant!

What’s done is done. Tough *ish.

The First Day of the Second Half of the Year.

It has been a long, long time since I last experienced this twisting in my stomach to such an extent. It quickens the blood even to my extremities; the palms of my hands are prickly, and the only reason my fingertips don’t itch is that I am typing. My eyes refuse to focus and my mind sleeps. I am going into nervous-system hibernation.

But I must stop this thing and break out. The more dramatic moments in my life have been preceded by such perceptive shut-downs; and I am not enthusiastic about most of the “more dramatic moments in my life” so far. I need some clarity.

But this heat will not help. Kandy is warm these days, but Colombo is just oppressive. It is not so much the heat but the humidity. This is not news to you. I don’t break out in sweat, the droplets themselves fear the sun and struggle to remain hidden under my skin, and so I am bloating. My pores are begging with their bulging eyes to be allowed to open their mouths and scream. I am not saying no, but the atmosphere is. And I have no control over the atmosphere.

Hara-Kiri must indeed have been release. I want now only to slit my stomach open and let the guts flow out so I can carefully sever whatever connection they have to the rest of my being.

Choices. My toes curl at the thought. My teeth itch.

But I must decide.

Rebellion

I’ve heard Christ called a rebel (cheers to unpleasant labels!). And I’ve read Paul writing “do not conform to this world”. So I should just follow my gut and do what I know I want to do, right?

Today, I believe the answer is wrong.

Jesus was in the temple when his parents didn’t expect it. His defense: “don’t you know I should be in my father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). I read these lines this morning and couldn’t hold some part of my soul back from stretching itself out of my body with such yearning to be free. I wanted to get up and run and tell my mother, my mentors, my family, my friends “People! Look! This is who I am, this is what I was made to do, this is what Christ said, so LET ME BE!”

Let me be selfish, let me be ungrateful, let me be irresponsible, let me be irrational, let me be insane. This is how I was made and this is how I will be. I am wonderfully and fearfully made, and God has a plan for me, not for evil but for hope and a great future that no eye has seen nor ear heard!

Oh wait, the passage continues:

⁵⁰They couldn’t understand what he said…

⁵¹Then he went down with them…and was obedient to them.

WHAT!? *yearning-stretching soul snaps back on elastic cord* Look, this is Jesus Christ of Nazareth we’re talking about here. He knew God like, like no one had even imagined a human being could know God. His parents could not understand the things he knew! And still he went. Like, hello!? WHAT was WRONG with him!?

So I sat there at the foot of my bed, staring at the words, my eyes popping.

*dejected face-palm*

You know what? I think his time hadn’t come. He was twelve. It took him not another ten, not fifteen, but eighteen years to get there. And after that? Well!

---

It’s misty out, and I see only the shadow of the second step. But I see that shadow without a doubt. I’m gonna put my foot there.

My second thoughts on the future.

I have been called stupid and irresponsible among other unpleasant things. And by general standards I probably am*. But even by these “general” standards (forgive me for generalizing), I can twist my words about decently well. Now while I get paid well enough for a growing child my age, to do this thing with words, I have other uses for it also.

 

We used to live very high up at the very top of a little mountain called Upper Hantana. It connects to one end of the Hantana Range and – needless to say – commands a lovely view. The drive there, past where I live now, takes you by the little muddy lake which sometimes homes demure manel pondering the clouds, up the quieter and quieter tarred road watched on either side by the towering forests of pine, to cooler air. On an evening, one inevitably meets villagers traversing up, down and sometimes simply across the road – furred ones, quilled ones, tusked ones, spotted ones, and all generally inoffensive and shy.

The thing I remember today is the mist. Mornings up there are freezing, cold at best. To splash tap-water on your face is to have it slightly numbed for some time or stinging at least. To open the front door or even windows before the sun is clearly out is to invite the clouds in to gulp the warmth right out of your tea. On a bad day, to step out of the house at dawn is a thrilling adventure.

I can see the upper step, but the second is only a shadow. The lowest one is completely invisible. But I know it’s there. I can’t see the flat stones that pave step-by-step the eight or ten yards between the door and the little swinging gate that leads out to the pine-carpeted vehicle path. But I know they’re there. I have only to stretch my arm out in front of me to lose my hand, although I know it’s there. It is cold. And despite the thrill of the dewy air teasing my blood, making my skin tingle, my brain is hassled by the familiar unfamiliar.

If I venture off the first step onto the shadow of what I know is the second, I will begin to see the shadow of the third. If I step off the second onto the shadow of what I know is the third, I will see the first stepping stone. I can make it to the gate and beyond.

I can have a whole adventure.

All I need is a shadow, without a doubt.

 

If, after this whole artistic harangue, you still hold the opinion that my policy on “planning the future” exposes a character that is stupid and irresponsible, let me bring your notice to the fact that there was an asterisk (*) – gosh, Live Writer turned that into a orangey-balooney-cartooney-graphic-monstrosity! – just after “I probably am” in the first paragraph (it’s alright if you absolutely must scroll back up to check). This, dear uneducated reader, denotes what is called a ‘footnote’. See below. FAIL.

“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt” -- James 1:5,6

*disclaimer – my standards are completely different and by those, people who think me stupid and irresponsible (and let me add irrational also, for good measure) are just failures.

In Praise

In the praise of a man…

 

In the praise of his flowing hair

I forgot, O Lord,

a crown of thorns.

In the praise of his mellow voice

I forgot, O Lord,

the breath of Life.

 

In the praise of his strong arms,

wrinkled elbows, the tender crook

I forgot, O Lord,

shoulders. bearing weights.

heavy weights.

burdens.

sin. fear. shame. anger. lust. hate.

 

In the praise of his fine hands,

tap’ring fingers, the shocking touch

I forgot, O Lord,

wrists.

skin bruised. pierced.

flesh torn. ripped. shredded.

bone cracked broken crushed. shattered.

 

In the praise of his shining skin

glowing soft coveted honey of bees

I forgot, O Lord,

a back.

lashed.

red. lashed.

cut. lashed.

blood. lashed.

open flesh. lashed.

gaping wound. lashed.

throbbing muscle. lashed.

screaming nerves. lashed.

naked bone. gleaming lashed.

numb.

lashed.

lashed. lashed. lashed. gasp lashed. lashed. moan lashed. lashed. teeth chatter. lashed. bladder leaks lashed. lights. lashed. blur. lashed. black.

And we are not even half done.

 

In the praise of a man

I forgot his maker.

 

O Lord, have mercy on me.

* “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the creator – who is forever praised. Amen.” Romans 1:25 (NIV)

My thoughts on the future.

I have been wasting too much time today (and yesterday, and the day before, and for many many days before that) in front of the computer, producing ZERO work. So, despite the fact that there are now two computer screens and four hands (two left and two right, the middle two oddly juxtaposed onto each other - the wonders of our sensory system, really!) in front of my eyes (I jumped the gun with the "sensory system" comment there it seems...) I WILL WRITE.

The elder places of a "young mind" doesn't seem all that accurate a description of the source of these rants anymore. I am starting to worry. As much as I drill myself to walk the walk and trust that "so much more" will God provide for me, my thoughts often go to actually having to foot my own bills rather than doing it simply because it gives me a kick. I have come to another one of those places.

Suddenly it's all about my "plans" again. With only six months left to go with the blasted degree, people want to know what I'm "going to do next". So far, I have not had a problem with the question because:

a.) I don't worry much

b.) I have (and always have had) a (very vague) "plan"

c.) Talking about it helps sort things further

d.) It also allows me to enjoy the sounds of my voice

e.) I love the sound of my voice

f.) I'm so much fun to listen to

g.) People don't always care so very few problems occur in the rare instance my monologue develops into an actually conversation/discussion

h.) If a problem occurs I can always still enjoy the sound of my voice

i.) I'm so much fun to listen to!

But I really do have a problem. But you already knew that. Only you never knew what the problem was. Good.

Bite me.

*And forgive me the arrogance of deciding to leave in the typo.

I couldn’t find the Word.

He is like

            thehaironmyskin

the world

tells me I should remove.

             If I am woman,

             I should be ashamed-

to love?

 

And then, I am not of this world.