pushing around heavy souls (a poem)

I saw him on the way to bring the kids home from school

He was graceful

And his baseball cap belied his masculinity

As he gently pushed the storm drain cement pipe

Hoisted by a crane, rooting for the earth
15 feet long and it’s girth almost as wide as he was tall

And it responded to his touch

Beautifully

By swinging just the right amount,

In just the right direction

Over the deep rectangular pit that had been dug for it

In the warm black clay earth.

I am maneuvering heavy souls

That appear as freckled, gangly bodies

With dirt under their nails and and germy fingers

Disheveled hair

Sometimes teary-eyes, sometimes impertinent

And I push them

Too hard

Too fast

It feels wreckless

And sometimes I want to jump back

Or just run away

My feet won’t move

And I’m there to catch them

As they spin back around

To crush me

My body slows their momentum

Or is it my heart

My ribs are crushed

Or is it my heart

My knees buckle

Or is it my heart

And I realize they nor I will ever get up

I’ll be holding my heavy souls on my lap

All my life

Or is it my heart

i wake up each day to someone else's life

I feel bewildered.  Lost is not too strong a term.  But not lost in that I wish I hadn’t gotten lost.  Lost in that I know I’m where I’m supposed to be, but it is so very very unfamiliar.  And I miss familiar – a lot.

I feel like I am waking up in someone else's bed with someone else's life. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that simultaneous to my setting myself adrift from the church, we moved twice in one year.  I live in an unfamiliar house in an unfamiliar neighborhood.  My kids go to different school, I shop at new stores.  I watch the sunrise and sunset from a different vantage point now that we are in the west plains rather than the East benches.  The pittering quail and overgrown trees of Sandy have been replaced with winter’s fallow fields and swarms of black and white birds swarming in big empty skies. It’s a good life, it’s a nice place, but nothing feels familiar.  Did I mention this is very disconcerting? I would not flinch if I looked in the mirror and saw a different countenance than the one that has appeared for the last 37 years. 

men and women

Men, through Joseph, are bestowed with an identity of being special, of communing with God, of trail blazing and commanding and fighting off naysayers.  And if this is the legacy of Joseph for men, Emma’s legacy for women is one of being lied to, neglected, cheated on, and having treasured withheld from her (seeing the plates for example) as her part in the role of bringing to pass God’s work.  This is what I learned from her – so when my efforts at noble obedience seemed to result in betrayal or neglect or failure, what was I to suppose?  That all of this could very well be my part to play, his plan for me.

But then, how in the world could I love God?  

And in fact, in the end, I hated him.  I continued to be obedient, but my feelings betrayed me.  I could not will myself to love a God like this.  I hated him and I hated myself for not glibly going along, a smile on my face, loving this wonderful God who had given me so much.  I hated myself – I do have so much – a wonderful family, wonderful children – how could I be so ungrateful?  I must just be rotten, and that is how I felt.  But deep down, I could only see God as a two-timer, double-speaker who told me he loved me but was willing to crush me under his heel if that meant furthering his plan.