Fatherhood

What do you see? A land taken by zeros? More zeros than you’ll ever know? Taken by money changers That take all they want In exchange for their soul? If that’s all that you see You’ve only read headlines In the red letter press This isn’t your land This isn’t my land This is my father’s house And he’ll see you to the door If you think you’re any better If you’ve got the nerve...

In the home where I grew up A porcelain monk lived on the kitchen counter Belly full of cookies Admonishing us not to steal Back when the house was full of sneaky fingers   I saw him enter the kitchen one day 30 years ago Something clearly wrong Part of him had vanished Struggling for the words To tell me that my grandpa was gone His father The pastor The preacher Thou Shalt Not Steal...

There was a song my father sang Not really a song at all Just a rhythm of syllables Rising and falling With every step And a pause with Every breath   There were never any words Neither for the song itself Nor for the way It brings me home   It would often be sung Out in the wilderness Surrounded by wonders Sometimes emerging From an ice cold pool Formed by a beaver dam In...

His auto-biography written on a storm that seemed like it would never end.   So he learned to accept the shivering soaking that followed whenever he stepped out of the shelter he’d built in his old broken heart.   Its walls are made of driftwood. Branches and limbs from long dead trees relinquished from the higher hills a long time ago.   Discarded ideas of the future that this storm ripped from their roots and...

Or again, what is the kingdom of heaven like? And to what can it be compared?   It is like a wealthy father who loved his only son. They shared everything in life and withheld nothing from one another.   One day the son was murdered in the streets by a gang of orphaned teens. In his grief the father was also moved to compassion and said to himself, “what good is all my wealth...

What is the kingdom of heaven like? Or what can we compare it to?   It is like gifts given to orphans who’ve never received a single gift in their entire lives.   The first orphan refuses to open the gift, for it is wrapped beautifully and with great care. If that isn’t love, what is? So they set the gift carefully on a shelf in their room, ignoring the lightness of the box and...

What is the kingdom of God like? And to what can it be compared?   The kingdom of God is like a father who built his family home on the upper banks of the Platte River in Nebraska, where the sandhill crane migration took place in the wetlands and riverbanks just outside their family room windows.   The father loved to watch these birds every year and kept a pair of the finest binoculars beside...

What is the kingdom of God like? And to what can it be compared?   It is like young father who remembers his joy for building spaceships out of legos when he was young and wants both of his children to experience the same joy of creativity and exploration afforded by those colorful building blocks, so he seeks out the king of all lego spaceship sets, and buys one for each of them- the massive...

He’s my middlest And he’s about to face this broken world Like it’s one big mechanical problem A gearing issue A motor too small To drive his dreams So he’ll take the whole thing apart I’m not kidding The whole wide world Will be in pieces IN MY GARAGE And then one day After we butt heads again Over the proper size Of a serving of ice cream He’ll storm out of the kitchen And...

My eldest My furthest One of my best friends But far away she’s flown (All the way to Cleveland even!) I remember On the day our son was born When she stood aside And quietly asked me not to forget about her And yet I slowly forgot about Everyone Myself My wife My son My God And my daughter My eldest She quietly retreated into books And then noisily into music And then quietly again...