Groanings Unspeakable
Feet like hymnals
carry us inevitably
to the same asherahs
as our forebears.
This, too, is vanity
and a striving after wind.
‘For I will visit the iniquities
on the children
and the children’s children
to the third and forth
generations.’
Thus says the Lord.
Saving the Cattle On a Thousand Hills: One Christian’s View of Environmentalism
SAVING THE CATTLE ON A THOUSAND HILLS: ONE CHRISTIAN’S VIEW OF ENVIRONMENTALISM
Shoes
My old ones were cracked apart,
a single faultline running like
a Nike check up both feet.
The soles degenerate and thin.
I bought a new pair today,
the black of them unsoiled felt.
There’s joy in such easy exchange,
though I’ll bet the future will see
these shoes broken on the same planes.
Our gaits are unique as fingerprints.
Announcements!
Hey everyone (all five of you who actually read this blog),
This post is here to announce a number of things. First and foremost, I have become a father! Asher Luis Candelario was born on 4/22/11 at 22:11 hrs. He weighed 7 lbs. 13 oz., and was 20.5 inches long. He is awesome. He is also prone to bouts of anger, but they tell me that’s normal.
The second announcement is that I will begin posting something new EVERY day. I will just go ahead and reveal here that this is basically for the purpose of generating more site traffic. However, for the few of you who are diligent readers of the occasional post that I put on here (…Dan), I think this will also spread out my postings a little better instead of having no posts for a few months and then a slew of posts in the same day. Anyway, that’s the plan.
I guess that’s all. Not really a “number of announcements.” Just two. But two’s a number though, right? Anyway, you can probably tell I’ve just become a dad because I am tired and I ramble. The end.
Grandpa (2)… or (1), I guess
He would sit in his chair,
a battered old recliner,
and prop his feet up
not one over the other, but
side by side
(they were wingtips,
nicely polished).
I’d sit in the corner
as the grownups talked
politics and gossip,
religion.
And me in the corner
reading comix.
I didn’t ask my mother
why his anger sat so deep.
She told me willingly,
half-embarassed.
She told me
his childhood:
-how as a little boy
my great(?)grandmother told him
she’d have preferred
miscarriage.
Or, perhaps,
abortion.
-how as a teen, even,
he’d made a rough time of it.
No ego, no esteem;
warring with others,
quitting jobs.
-how the USMC
had saved him,
but only for the Vietnam
atrocities, and (later)
alcohol.
-how he’d lost his family
to the bottle
and ¾ of his heart
to the cigs.
It was years later when
she told me (through cupped hands, whispering)
he thought salvation
a work.
A work for which
he was not cut out.
He thought God a closed-hand man,
fists full of gifts you have to earn.
He thought “God damn”
could ruin the grace.
I understand you better
now you’re gone.
I bit your nose
when I was teething, remember?
at the elephant-circus
where trapeze artists
flew through the air.
I realize now you felt
you had no net.
The smell of your
kitchen still
lingers in my
soul.
I eat the fruit
of your table.
