Poetry

The First Day at School with an Empty Seat

Sarah GoochLeave a comment

When you’re gone we just don’t
talk about you anymore,
don’t mention your existence
or the sudden absence of it,

much less still our lips for a minute
of silence sacrificed in your name.
The quiet we cover you up with
is colder than that,
less like a burial with its awful, haunted wailing
and more like a neat, clean, pink eraser
in the hands of a businessman
who assures you it isn’t personal.

Not personal:
therein lies the poison.

The system, we are assured,
can chug along without you—
you, a replaceable cog or piston—
so don’t worry about the collateral damage
if you ever find yourself suddenly missing,
because instead of dropping to our knees in the snow,
scratching and ripping
at the dead grass and dirt
till we unearth a deeper pain
and clearer purpose for living,
we’ll be so fine it will make you
uncomfortable.

We pretend that the pond
has no ripples post-stone,
and what scares me most
is if we spend enough days
running out far away from the
center of the center of our
soul-centered self like this,

eventually
it won’t.

Poetry

Instead of Afraid

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This, too, is a day
that could perch delicately
in the palm of your hand,
a baby bird flown away
faster than you can photograph
the sweet touch of yellow
just under her chin—

and that’s as it should be,
as it always is—

but today you might also miss
even seeing
all the splendor grilled into a corn tortilla
with its train track burn marks
crusted and perfect,
your sister (as usual) lifting her voice up
to cut you off quickly and unlisten you along
with an idea that turns out to be
pretty good,
the prehistoric lovely buggy of a car
that lingers beside you
in the left-turn lane,
and the touch of rose scent
that stays after the foam
of the soap that you scrubbed
forty seconds, to be safe.

You can’t feel it anymore,
because they’ve made you afraid,
and tomorrow could crash
down your door any day—

and it might, too.
It might.
Something in that is true,

but it always is.
Listen: let the waves of what-if’s
drift in and out with their shipwrecks
and myths, as they do,
as we all tremble sometimes
in the midnight wind.

It’s in the in-between hours
you must take what is yours
and squeeze it hard like an orange
with both fists,
juice dribbling down your fingers,
dripping lyrics on your wrists.

This, too, is a day
you are here with the sun,
with its tumbling wonders
and dirt road bouquets.

You’re alive, you know.
You’re still lightning and lace.

Poetry

Epilogue: They Remembered How to Shine, and Why

Sarah GoochLeave a comment

Let’s stick with the commas, kid;
keep me on the script.
I can take them and toss them
throughout your Google doc
with precision, no problem;
I can answer every question
about grammar and plot—

but I don’t know what to say
about your grandpa,

why a good man
came home from
all-the-way-in-Africa
only to be lost again.

I could give you a guess,
repeat some tight
theology I think you
know by now
(the curse we all still cough on,
the corpse who conquered death),
but you never were the type
to need help reading
any text.

It feels like every year
I end up understanding less:
why mercy doesn’t earn respect,
why we take the side
of see-through lies
and sleep in the arms of our destruction,
why the patriarchs and prophets die,

why he had to wait
beneath the whip so long
before they let him lift
his own undoing up
upon his shoulders,
I don’t know—
and was each moment of it
necessary to balance out
the great cosmic equation
for my soul?
Would a pistol to the temple
not have been enough of hell
to pay my dues
and let me go?

Did he question?
Did he know,

or did the stars above Gethsemane
hear so much doubt laced in his pleas
that they lost the heart to shine that night
for fear all hope
had been a lie?

Poetry

My Father’s Father’s Son

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

You could see their sameness
in the boyish grin:

an extra twinkle and a wink
slipped inside every smile
flipped their eyes back time
and turned their faces twin.

You could hear it ripple out
around the pebble of laughter
that they tossed to start movement
in a dull swamp of room,

taste it in the flavor
of high-pitched silliness
that they laced around the edges
of every soft friendship.

I noticed it mostly
up around the shoulders:
straight-and-narrow square
even when wheelchaired in,
they never consented
to gravity’s heist,
never lost sight
of the love in their lives.

They burned galaxy bright.

It was expansive energy
that bound them in tight;
this particular strain of DNA
less about noses and height and shape,

more about morals and trying again,
and happy hellos,
and faithful-true ends.

Poetry

For Grandma

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Like a petal pressed between the pages,
delicate and lightly writ with ink,
you were the past preserved
and never changing,
a quiet fragrance of memory.

Always the same house
on ever the same street
wearing just the same blouses
and firm beliefs,
the new century left you a little confused—

so you didn’t try to keep up with the times,
just kept cutting interesting bits
from old papers
nd smiled softly at the grandkids
you didn’t understand.

Death alone could have made you different.
History has come now to take you home.

Poetry

Release

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A migrant fox found me
sitting cross-legged and composed
in the clipped little system
of my front yard.
He was kingly and distant,
a perfect picture,
and I didn’t want to ask,
didn’t mean to make it awkward,

but he was the one who came to me:
free-willed, flame-backed,
he stood firm on his feet
beside my lap
and let me slip my hand
down the silk of his skin,
then test the gold waters
of eye contact.

And I longed for him then,
as he must have expected,
as all nomads and rebels
must keep their space
from this world of cages
and schedules and claims.

He felt the tightening
in my hands in advance,
before it ever came,
and so he looked at me long
and he vanished away.

But all this did not break the leash—
for once you love a wild thing,

you yourself are no longer free.

Reflections

Only Way

Sarah GoochLeave a comment

There’s still nothing better than “Be still and know,” no greater destination than the straight and narrow. I can safely build my home inside His promises, my whole life inside the shadow of His cross.

So let me be a loser, and let the crowds rush past me to a trendier religion. While progress chases its tail in circles and the greedy find new schemes to go for the throat, I’m still singing the same creeds that first captivated me, even when the melody starts to sound old.

The blood, the nails, the sinner’s prayer;

grace and goodness,

righteousness, confession, truth.

Jesus has always been the only way. They try their hardest to cast doubt on His reputation, but they can never stain the spotless, radiant glory of the King of Kings, universal reign unending.

Reflections

Recognition

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Mom guilt. Woman guilt. Friend guilt. Family guilt. It doesn’t all fit—it never, ever will. All we can do is set priorities, decide which of our roles are most worthy of the space in our days. How much time did I spend playing with my son today? Never as much as I’d like to, ever.

So who gets the minutes I have leftover, once the work is done? There’s always another anybody I could do a real-quick everything for—or my boy and I could drive the dump truck across the carpet one more hour today than usual.

It’s the service projects outside the home that receive all the kudos and brownie points. That’s where I’ll find recognition and a name. I can prove to the world I’m still ablaze with missionary zeal and busyness; I can astound my peers with how much I manage to accomplish even with a baby on the hip; I can try to reassure my insecure ego that I’m definitely an important, self-sacrificing somebody making a difference everywhere but here.

Or I could hear my husband’s heart as he and I walk around the block every afternoon, then hold my baby’s hands as he walks around the furniture again. For all my education, abilities, and big ideas, the greatest accomplishment I can achieve each day is to walk in circles with the same two boys, listening and laughing, teaching and repeating, slow and satisfied enough to let my heart rest in the trophy of their simple presence.

No one will notice. No one will care. But the blessed path never was impressive. The good life is only good from the inside looking out. From the outside, it looks just like any other house, too boring and normal to count for much.

Reflections

Instead of Adventure

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Recently I’ve been remembering my waterfall days, when I stood at the top of the yawning mouth of the world and looked down, and when I stood at the bottom of the rush and climbed up. I’ve been happy for family members whose feet are currently wet with adventure, and dreaming about which ships my son will choose to sail whenever the compass starts calling his name.

And these are all wonderful. But for a couple of years after the jungle slipped just past my grip, I struggled to hear the voice of God, and with time I learned to long more for the unexpected experiences in the Spirit than I did for the fun of a canoe. Walking with God is the adventure that soaks past the skin, that lasts past the letdown of the flight back home.

Jesus speaks, He breathes, He teaches and heals, He gives me exactly the Word I need every night I reach the end of my strength. He meets with me, corrects me when I’m wrong, softens my heart back from bitterness, and fills me with joy when I should just be stressed. I walk through hardship, yes, yet He holds me up and rescues me when the enemy attempts to take me out. Jesus speaks at the most surprising times, and every glimpse of Him makes me catch my breath. He never answers my prayers the way I wanted, but He always answers them well. I never know who He will send my way next, which divine conversation He will design as His purposes bring His people together.

I’m so thankful for every stream He’s let me cross—and I haven’t taken my water shoes off yet. Nothing is more exhilarating than living by the voice and the power and the Word of the Lord, and He is moving like a river, unpredictable and swift.

Poetry

Ten Weeks

Sarah GoochLeave a comment

My baby is the size of a haiku.

Baby Offstage

Eyelids squint, knees bend,
hands clench. You're learning your lines,
memorizing life.