Playing On The Edge Of The Grave
Jesus hangs around in the hallway
at the foot of the stairs
weeping, maybe, weeping, yes
for all the lambs,
the children,
who lost their innocence
on their way to the adult-hood.
Jesus
last seen
in the bedroom
where goodnight prayers
are nightly made before
the descent into
the cool night begins
before the call of
Third Street
drifts into windows
disguised as Buddha’s breath
So sweet and innocently it calls:
“Come out and play
con mi hijo
Come out and join our
merry band of Angels
and play.”
Jesus loves the children
in the Buddha-hood,
growing up on the edge
while their parents are distracted
by a thirst for possession
and the hunger for status
- always in the name of the children -
Jesus knows their sorrow
their longing for the love-actions
not just the love-words.
Jesus hears their tiny voices in the night
and wants to carry them away
to heaven’s eternal safety
But Jesus must wait
patiently
for a mother’s distraction to blind
protective eyes -
for a fraction of a second,
just a short breath -
the careless child will come
the careless child always
miss a step while playing
at the edge of the grave,
and Jesus will be there with
the hand of guidence and redemption
ready to catch them as they flutter
like fallen angels
like leaves dropping from the tree of life
dropping into his waiting arms
waiting to lead them to their new homies
“En la vida loca”.
In the town where I live
like your town and towns everywhere
there are graves.
Not ordinary graves with little markers
and flowers and the other commemorations
that loving families place on them to mark
the passage of time, the memory
of their lost one’s going.
Lord there are plenty enough of those graves!
But these graves are empty!
They wait like pot-holes on the road of life
wait for someone to fall,
for someone to slip out of line --
they are little traps
for the innocent and the naive.
They are the neighborhoods that are written off
whose inhabitants have been
pronounced dead, though they still walk
and talk
laugh and cry
The City Council does not care
The Police do not care
The Church does not care
No one cares
They serve no purpose except as justifications
& rationalizations for why nothing can be done
why there must be more money
more police
more laws
more excuses
more votes
more fear
more bullshit
more of everything for some
and more of nothing
for those on the edge
of the grave.
Too Soon
So much depends on
the grinning of a lone
child
laughing
on the run
like Neruda’s
Brown & agile child
at loose ends
with seaweed hair
floating free
unadorned
a simple grace
too soon
too soon
the weight of anguish
a carpet of lilies
on fields of Flanders
Belfast, Soweto, Compton,
Sarajevo, Beruit
too soon
the tolling of the bell
too soon
the world is
at once,
bigger
and yet somehow
smaller
too soon
the long night
like a blanket
covers us all.
Travelin’ Man
He brought into focus
the road
those byways and highways
that link us together.
He traversed the
north
American
continent
so often
that he knew the best places
to be in just the right
season
at just the right moment
to see the best
sunset
or catch the first
bird in flight
or celebrate the
wildflowers blooming
for the first time ever.
In chapter and verse
he brought the land
and the people alive
and each Sunday, he
brought the world
to us
the world and his
America of roads
and people with good hearts
and good dreams for the future.
He brought us tales of
hardship and hard work
of the rewards of perseverance
and of that damnable Yankee
ingenuity.
He brought to our attention
the nobility of the American Ideal
of freedom and truth
through the eyes and words of
American artists and writers,
of factory workers and civil servants,
of farmers and jazz pianists,
of musicians and dancers
and most importantly
he reminded us of the glory of
our oft-forgotten gift of life
by bringing the land to us
in all its stark, unadorned, and
un-enhanced beauty.
Willie n’ Jack may have written
about it, but he
lived it --
on the road.
Charles Kuralt (1934 - 1997)
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