Handsful

Every way around it was blocked off or a dead end.
Well traveled, to be sure,
but narrowing to one lane eventually and ending, every one.

If I was to ever make my way from the southern shore of up ‘til now
to the unexplored promise of beginning now
I would have to trust one shaky, ancient foot bridge,
not without a rope handrail to keep me upright and right heading.

Thin wooden planks weren’t a problem - they’d hold me.
Bending, turning, twisting rope frames didn’t deter me
they’d keep me steady.
There was no absence of a handhold to direct me from past side to future side
to guide me through today.
Rope rested ready for a firm grip or a gentle tug.

I’d avoided this sole path leading out of yesterday
through today and into the best tomorrow I could all but see
simply because I did not dare
could not imagine
wrapping fingers and thumb around the guide ready.

My hands were full of packages
and my grip was so habitual
I didn’t
couldn’t
unfasten knuckles white
to release the box of fears
the suitcase of regrets and guilt
the knapsack of shame
and the precious goblet wrapped in velvet
that held everything I was and wished I wasn’t.

And so for days and months and years
of counting moons and pacing seasons
and tracing foot paths along the edge of yesterday

I’d look for another way
down,
around
but never through
(the current swift would surely carry me away,
taking control and drowning me in memories boxed securely.)

As a friend can lift burdens when given the chance,
so, too, the knapsack of shame was gently taken from my shoulder
softly placed on the counter-top of revelation
and piece by piece each broken mirror was dusted, polished, to reveal
a reflection distorted, but not by shame
instead by time worn child formed memory.

Where shame has no reason, shame has no rest.

One less package to carry and just a bit more energy to tackle guilt and regret.

Moons rise and fall over the river of today
cliffs of up ‘til now erode with just a whisper
How could I have not noticed how soft and simple
the edges that portrayed themselves as diamond hard and razor sharp
collapsed like talc with a cautious touch.

Kneeling to draw a smiling face in the silky dust with one timid finger
I uncovered a tarnished key
Revealed and beckoning to be lifted from its burial place
I turned the brass relic in my hand
memorizing its every facet and cut
marveling at its weight remaining cool in my warm grip
but not thinking to wonder about asking why

Taking inventory and about to hang the chorded key around my neck
I noticed brass of identical tarnish
adorning corners, handle, clasp of the heavy suitcase in my clenching grasp
A key so large, so old
so seemingly worth a castle gate or a prison door
yet, as I brought the two together
as brass key slid perfectly into brass lock
The heavy suitcase opened on its hinge with such ease
I wondered if its contents might have been regularly rearranged.

Hadn’t life been packing and carrying
guilt for trapped father,
regret for abused mother
who set aside dreams and carried burden with both guilt and regret?

Wasn’t it my burden now?
To be anchored to this suitcase packed with the waste of a life spent captive?

Yet as the bricks and mortar emptied from the opened case
and landed on the finest sand soft and were quickly lost to wind,
the memory attaching guilt to any grain
was lost in precisely the same moment as the breeze named Freedom blew by.

Who should carry an empty suitcase?
Who should bear the burden of confining nothing but regret and guilt
into the space that should hold wonder?

Who should burden themselves with a package
that no one wants to send
or to deliver,
or to receive?

Why fill fingers, hands, or arms with so much emptiness
that no space remains
for grasping grace,
for holding the warmth of merciful love
for embracing with every thread
of desire, of thirst, of desperate hope
the touch of another soul?

As my choice becomes clearer
I see the path I’ve been pacing
is littered with tattered, busted, broken cases
spilling only sand.

I release my grasp on the handle and set this ancient relic down
without regret or guilt remaining
I swiftly kick it off the cliff
watching it vanish long before it would otherwise have exploded

Isn’t it curious how the gripping hand complains just a little
before it opens with relief?
Fingers flex and fold, invigorated by their new found freedom.
Arms that had been stretched and bent around so many burdens,
now happily readjust my load.

Only two parcels remain:
One cardboard box
and one goblet wrapped
in velvet, this surely was a treasure
I could trust my hunch even though I’d never unwrapped it
This unique shape of stem and cup revealed enough
I wedge the stem between my arm and belly
so that the velvet draped container opens just below my heart
Leaving two hands free
to rummage and explore the contents of my cardboard box

Having weathered bumps and bruises
having been subject to icy wetness and the most wicked of radiant sun
having been torn and taped on every side
such that top was indistinguishable from bottom,
This cardboard box seems resilient to time’s tumbling and season’s wear
If anything had made this box less square
it was the way I forced it closed on top
and squeezed it tightly so that edges bent and buckled
Was this container strong enough, safe enough
to hold fears secure?
If it was full of anxiety, where could I take the box
to safely inspect it’s contents?

I look over my shoulder and I discover a world of others
each carrying a box of fears much like mine
each weary from grasping, tightly holding - each beyond desperate

Some lie curled up like infants enveloping their box,
terrorized into stillness

Some run without reason, their fear box at fingertips
they intend to hurl their time bomb into an unsuspecting crowd

But most, like me, hug their fears tightly

Why do they do this, I cry out.

Silence answers with another question.
“What are they doing?”

I pull my cardboard box of fears from under my arm
and I hold it out.
Why do they carry this? I yell

The reply, again a question
“What are they carrying?”

They carry all their fears, and mine.
I carry all my fears, and theirs. Why? I grow impatient.

“Did you force them to carry your fears?”
Of course not, I reply.

“Did they force you to carry their fears?”
Heavens no, I answer.

“Then why do they do this? And why do you?
Exasperated, I shout. That was my question!

Equally exasperated, heaven shouts
“That is your answer”

Too puzzled to be afraid, I open the box.
Sure enough, it’s full of things I once feared
but not anymore.
Of things I’ve used to cover up my fears, now too small or too smothering.
Digging deeply through to the bottom, I find nothing new
Only forgotten fears
not one single thing that could cause me harm today.
It’s clear now
There is nothing in this dilapidated shell that’s worth my time
my energy
my fear.

I pour the contents out onto the sand, where they dissolve.
I label the box
DEPOSITS ONLY
and I tack it to a nearby tree.

Before I use my ready hands to cross the bridge to beginning now
I realize that the only thing I carry Is a goblet, wrapped in velvet
Although its shape
vessel-on-stem-on-feet
gives its identity away
I know next to nothing else

No other package is as mysterious,
nor has any other been dressed so luxuriously

canvas, cardboard, tarnished brass

The supple, soft velvet that wraps itself gently is evidence enough
that the goblet’s surface requires a gentle touch
I expect a precious metal polished to a mirror finish
lustrous gold or silver etched with my name
I hold my breath and tighten my grip
as I carefully remove the velvet veil

There is no brilliant reflection
no gold, no silver, no words
Instead an inconsistent and unexpected shimmer
like the sun’s reflection on lake waters rippled by a breeze
that pushes and pulls clouds

I feel the sparkle, glisten, twinkle
fly from my eyebrow to my chin so quickly that I can’t be certain
where the light comes from or where it will land next
My face moves up, down, and over as my eyes attempt to trace the path
of this elusive, bouncing, dancing light
With each cycle of this search my gaze begins and ends on the rim of this curious goblet
or is this sparkling sculpture something else entirely?

I study it
I fix my eyes, furrow my brow, and focus my attention on this body,
standing naked with velvet at its feet.
Almost instantaneously
the dancing light it emanates finds my eyes with the power of an eclipsed sun
forcing me to avert my gaze and bow my head
It is Holy, this goblet.

But not the Holy vessel offered as a sacrificial gift
to a group of friends and enemies in an attempt to build community
to be offered and then shared
but only to some, exclusively
and then battled over and murdered for
and then almost lost each Sunday

This piece of art fashioned of glass fragments
some newly broken and sharp, some polished round
is held together somehow by the glue of my own story

And it is these fragments that from time to time, one at a time
catch sunlight and toss it, ray by ray to me
like daily lessons, weekly sermons, and season’s parables

“Here’s one… did you catch it?”

It’s the voice again.

Ouch. Yes I did. Where shall I keep it?

“You learn slowly, don’t you?
These lessons aren’t meant for you to hold or bind or save or obsess over.”

“Catch the lesson. Sift through it. Taste and listen. Then let go.

Extend your arms so that you can enjoy the fullness, richness, beauty of this goblet.
Holding it tightly to your self has only the advantage
of allowing your heart to bleed into it.
But who, save you, is helped by that.”

I only thought, I start

“Don’t think so much”

to finish, I continue that goblets are for holding close and drinking.

“and passing” the voice adds.

“This goblet doesn’t contain an elixir or a potion.
It’s vessel, propped on slender stem can’t keep a treasure
to be later poured or sipped.
There is no blood of life within - everlasting, or brief
transubstantiated by holy men, or blessed mystically by wise women

Symbolically or literally
this created, fashioned, shimmering glasswork cannot contain anything”

What, then, why?
Should I give up this, too, to cliff walls and sand?
If this goblet isn’t meant to carry a thirst-quenching drink,
then why carry it along?
Why not let it go the way of empty knapsacks, suitcases, and boxes?
Of what use is a beautiful goblet for carrying my heart, extraordinary
if it cannot even hold soil, ordinary?

To add emphasis and dramatic metaphor
I scoop a handful of the sand derived of bricks and stones
and I pour it from my hand into the vessel
watching fine grains filter through the many cracks and fall back to the ground.

“Do you feel as foolish as you look?”
She giggles as if my buttons are mismatched or a tag is showing
or a toothpaste trail remains on my chin.

Why would you bestow on me, overflowing with quirks
absent-minded and empty
a cup, empty, though potentially heart-full, and overflowing with sparks?

Her warm, strong arms wrap themselves around me while she giggles again
Her soft hands somehow enfold mine with gentle confidence
and I feel the calm
the peace of knowing
in a mysterious, magical, mystic way
the depth and breadth and infinite possibility
of now

Nothing of a moment ago is visible
nothing of the moment to come either
There is no cliff of up til now
or distant shore of beginning now
I’m enveloped in the immediate
but without margins or edges or boundaries

Oh, my God! I sing
her wisdom answers,“and other’s God, too!”

Oh, our God! I sing still louder.

“We hear and see you in the now”
He, she, all love and beauty sings with me
in three part, four part, infinite harmony

“Tell me what your goblet holds,” is the song’s refrain.

Doubt and confusion stop me from singing.

Didn’t you see? I ask
all the cracks in this goblet?
It’s beautifully made but it cannot hold anything.
I don’t want to seem ungrateful.

Let’s go back to our song again.
“Look inside,” the Voice insists.

I bring my hands in closer and look deep into the well.
There, at the bottom are dregs, stones, nuggets
too large or misshaped to have escaped.

Oh, this?
It’s nothing much, I say as I reach into the cup and lift out one of the remains.

As soon as I can look closely at the composition
of this seemingly insignificant pebble
I discover that this is the heartache I stumble through
each and every time I consider the injustice of illness and pain

“This is a lesson you must eventually learn if you are to discover wholeness.
Every time you drink of life this pebble will show up
until you accept its lesson and decide to let it go.”

“You are given a life full of potential
but if your life, like your goblet is walled off
solid and unbending,
able only to be filled but never emptied
then each new day will potentially overfill you,
overwhelm you
or just escape you.”

“Love and bless each crack in your story,
in your heart,
in you.
Pay close attention to the stones that aren’t easily filtered.
Some carry frustration
black and burned, like igneous rock
taking up space, but consisting of mostly of holes and emptiness.
Some carry joy
speckled and striped, like layers of sandstone,
telling a story that took ages to write.

Just as surely as each gem on your goblet has been intentionally placed,
the spaces between those gems have a purpose.

If you allow life’s lessons to accumulate without your attention
your goblet, like your life
will be less effective at negotiating a path and knowing the way forward.”

God, the Father, Mother, Grandparent, Lover, Friend
gently lifts my hand and takes the goblet-stone,
kisses it,
thanks it,
blesses it
and then drops it.

In the same instant that it hits the ground,
light bounces just a bit more
from facet to facet, surface to surface,
imperfection to imperfection
in and out
of the goblet
draped in velvet
that is me.