Thoughts Have Hands

I am who I will be

A challenge to the wind

A lonely rock shaped by chaos 

Sinking in the deep.

I am mass and energy swirling in space 

A universal plea defying time

I am protons and neutrons knotted by gravity,

I am an electron moving too fast to

Explain my identity. 

I am resistant to change 

I am persistent playing my entangled game 

I am inconsistent seeking what’s new.

I am emptiness seeking connection

I am striving for validation 

Unsure of the name I was given 

I am a merchant of half-baked dreams

Selling success to all who listen.

I am wadded up paper,

Thrown to the floor,

Discarded thoughts,

Left on their own to slowly unfold

I am spread out, frayed at the edges. 

I am often illegible, not exotic, a common script longing to be deciphered.

I am narratives torn from my drama,

A performer, seeking direction.

I am a half written script 

With endings doubtfully imagined, wanting rewrites or a bigger part.

I am an offender uncomfortable with redemption 

I am my own mystery thriller full of apprehensions,

a master at deception, tempting fate,

A juggler with arthritic hands, 

Posing for a smidgen of human attention,

An actor in pursuit of a standing ovation. 

I am a poet scrawling words on scrap paper to catch artistic inclinations

I am a seeker of rhymes with aging balance.

I am unskilled labor pining for work. 

I am innocence grown old and romantic.

I am digging at my hidden roots.

I am wistful of branches too high to reach.

I am a leaf yellowing on the tree.

I swing with summer breeze

I am turning golden soon to float free.

I am bold but full of aging wisdom.

I am disordered entropy.

My consciousness sails west to meet sunset.

I remain an incomplete mess as winds blow me along to an unknown home.

I am grounded looking at sky, feeling the earth under my toes.

Through looming branches,

I reconstruct trips aimed at the sky 

I am desire attached to memories I want to last.

I am a brittle leaf curled up in hope. 

Love will warm me in the sun.

I am winter snow

Taking the shape underneath 

I am molded by gloved hands 

into fragile art, 

A singular eye catcher, 

Left in sunlight to water the earth.

I am open space dancing with time 

I am a temporary, too fallible to understand

I am who I am. 

THH

2/26/25

A preacher, some called teacher spoke to a crowd about abundance

and a special kin-dom very near.

With ears accustomed to broken promises, and suspicious of the words from another ecstatic prophet, the crowd hoped to hear more.

Starved for a message to fulfill tradition,

Ready for ancient hopes to be confirmed,

Hands fingered empty pockets in anticipation,

He spoke of a kingdom found within, available for the asking.

But his call to love enemies and turn the other cheek or walk an extra mile made them grumble.

A strange place to begin a faith journey thought many burdened by debts.

Angry with their long suffering situation, they hungered for victory over known foes.

Full of desperation, they looked for a mighty king, to bring the kingdom to fruition.

To win power in a final apocalypse, and be rid of woe. This was the message of abundance listened for.

The crowd pressed hard against the man, forced him to climb into a boat. And there he spoke loud and clear over the water so every ear could hear.

He proclaimed all are blessed, including the meek and even the weak. He assured them everything will be revealed and all will be satisfied in God’s Kin-dom.

But the crowd wanted blood on the ground. His peace looked puny. And in spite of the man’s reputation for making good wine they left confused and thwarted.

Crowds are never pleased if expectations go unmet. No crowd sees truth until the innocent lay dead and the earth splits open.

But the enemy to be feared is not the one expected. The crowd wanted to conquer their oppressor, not uncover internal demons.

If this story rings in your ears it may remind, when fear wins elections year after year, when habits rule without reflection and abusive practices go unchallenged, when cynical campaigns of lies and fake news blind eyes to facts, then hate takes precedence and escalates by degrees of humiliation to physical retaliation.

Then all we have done is repeat the sad case of the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Rivalries rule our hearts until we face the envy within and humbly seek to be forgiven.

As the crowd wandered off, the man looked ahead and strolled the shore to sit with friends he met before. Fishermen repairing nets after a long night’s work, bone tired and wanting rest.

The man invited them back to their boat. They knew with the Master work never ends. So they rowed into the deep and let the nets down where he said; and the catch was more than the men could haul in. The boat nearly sank by the weight of fish.

Amazed by the gift of abundance, they knew the meaning of God With Us.

And one named Peter, exhilarated by this miracle was transformed; and before his friend fell to his knees and called him Lord.

For this huge catch would feed his family and the village for a week, so Peter believed the kingdom had come.

And the man said to him, are you impressed by catching fish? Come let’s be fishers of men.

And so the message spread a wide net, and to this day we seek this kin-dom of abundance and hope it will soon come.

But our hearts ruled by desire for control and sundry comforts, fears there is never enough.

When the man said to share with your neighbor so no one will be lost, few followed considering the cost.

And still we ask who is my neighbor?

Must I treat this other like kin?

And quick we are to remove the speck from the other guy’s eye and ignore the prejudice hidden under our skin.

Blind to abundance we covet more and more.

THH

02/06/25