Hide and Seek & Palm Sunday

This week two events made me put down the news and think deeply about people. Someone launched missiles. Someone bombed a church on Palm Sunday. The occurrences made me consider the weight and implications of split-second decisions that happen on account of decisions made by the powerful over a five course dinner. The oppressed seem to walk around with forgotten written across their faces; that makes me think very soberly about the promises of God. Sometimes there are no answers and sometimes there are no words, which is worse.

I try to at least bring the words.

Hide and Seek

The game gives you time
a membrane of separation
between hunter, hunted

One child, head in hands
slow counts ten numbers
suppressing anticipation

Dispersion of the players
starburst of rippling panic
to hide well or risk losing

The fast-paced choosing
first the large rotten tire
then bucket, then cellar

When the counting ends
one missile-nosed child
sniffs out the population

What is found is found
but if you run fast enough
you don’t even have to hide

Palm Sunday

Who would have known
great stone walls, smooth wooden pews
would be a great, smooth altar?
One altar should be enough
for politely kneeling
toward the life of Christ
hung at lovely intervals
points of reference during prayer.
            The strewn cloaks
            to bless the path of Jesus
            and that sweet, holy colt.
Each person crying Hosanna!
in gloriously unified 4-part hymns
Save, we pray!
Inching towards remembrance of blood
body, resurrection.
                                 First, that troubling part
about death, though.
            Palm branches waving.
            Vindication is intoxicating.
Who would have known
the choir was the front line
priest infantry in the armor of God?
The explosive moment of jubilee
chosen sacrificial lambs
each person crying
                                 Hosanna!
Please, save!
Like the paintings, the wondering mouths
agape, Hosanna running freely
from the lips of the dearly beloved
walls monstrously stained with creation.
Blown, burned word of God
they gaze upon, waiting for the truth
about it being alive. A palm frond
woven into a cross, dripped in red
at all four corners.
                               Tongues asking
for a savior, please save!
the uncertainty of prayer
filling up the mouth with nothingness.
Caution tape is stretched across the birth of Jesus
as if to warn the undecided. A priest stands
on the ravished floor trying to remember
the part about the Angel of Death
Israelites, Egyptians
how long ago it was.
How this was the wrong Sunday
                                                      for blood.