I pray.

That you are comfortable, safe, and no longer afraid.

And for the peace which passeth all understanding.

For everyone you blessed with your presence. 

On our knees (where else could we be)

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

-Ephesians 3:14-21

Numerology in a season of giving

You're dense and systematic

The vein along your index finger

Bulges and you raise your eyebrows

As you point your hand towards me.

Ok, here is the thing, (you know.)

You tap my shoulder expectantly

A little boy. Excitement. The breathe clings to the notes in your voice.

The thing is. This man tells me. This old man. This man that is here and now. See, that's the thing, he says.

Were you listening? 

why

ok.

I want to talk of the difficult things. to speak about the reasons we crack and crumble.

it isn't the good, or even the unknown.

it's the misunderstood. the obstacles we face that we don't understand.

and I want to ask you, all of you.

to understand me.

and this thing I am trying to do.

Because I don't, and I need your help.

No. I need your faith.

Faith, and all of the unknown that comes with it.

The coolest day in August

And as the sweat dripped down my swollen and sticky face.

The salt and mascara carving the creases
and folds of rivers and lakes.

Pores and scars and motion. Lines.

Love.


The salt hit my lips, my tongue.

And those kind of heaving cries that convulse in your throat and strangle you.

Those low pitched moans that barely escape your lungs and as you feel them gush through your throat, you know somewhere,

That it isn't only you.

And love.

As I watched my sister lay her dog in the ground.

As I squeezed the moss underneath my bare feet and sweated. As I stared at her through sunshine and the furry haze of full eyes.

My dad dug the grave in the morning. And in the afternoon, when the clouds broke, and when the breeze lifted, we laid him in the ground.

And oh, love.

Arrange him just right. And as my dad's back ached, and the sweat and dirt filled the wrinkles in the back of his weighing head. I picked up a second shovel.

The soles of my feet collided with the steel. Stepping into the red clay, the roots and the grass. The worms and the rocks. Feel the clay beneath your toes. Warm and complete. Sultry and alive.

Step. Lift the shovel.

Help your sister.

Sweat and dirt.

And oh love.

What of it?

Time, and time, and time again.

The reason for living.

The pain that makes you wish it would stop.

And this year.

We walked from the creek to the grave. Over and over. Rocks from the creek bed to lay over his body.

We won't let anything happen to him.

Rocks. bend and lift. sweet moss beneath my feet.

And this year. The fourth person I've laid in the ground.

Oskar, and John, Mawmaw and now my sister's dog.

My sister's heart.

And the pain that comes from loving?

All of it. And none of it.

Everything.

Love.

Everything.

Oh, love.

Well, I wouldn't lie to you. There is a tremendous amount of pain in living.

A sorrow in being alive.

There's an ache in my bones and a longing for everything.

Just, all of it.

The past and the future, so understood.

Ligaments and tendons, stretching and creaking. Holding me together.

We tell stories of her, here, now.

We laugh and tears well up in the back of my throat. My head is sticky and my cheekbones throb.

We laugh and our eyes dull. Take a deep breathe, and push back the pain a little further.

We love you dearly Mawmaw.

Texas is not the same without you,

And neither am I.

The Arbuckles

My father's favorite place is somewhere between Norman, Oklahoma and Corinth, Texas. The arbuckles. A granite quarry. Stretches and expanses of highway, carved through slabs and jaunts of wild and amorphous rocky crags. We could build a house on top of here, he says.

The mesquite trees vie for attention, gripping the bends and breaks of the crumbling structures, they stretch their limbs to the sky, oblivious to the thick and dripping heat. to the way the blue quivers and weaves in the sunlight. To the way the clouds roll and disappear.

This place, he says.

Makes me so happy.