Mountain

You don’t get to live on the mountaintop
You’ve got to come home sometime
You’ll climb again
You don’t wake up and make your breakfast on the stage
After the lights come up
You’ll sing again
If you want to
Do what you need to do
Take all the time you need
All that you want to be
Is in your reach
But you have to climb

Praise Song

(written October 2014)

Your name has long echoed in these fading strains
A forgotten chord played years ago but first in centuries past
Praised by those who claimed to know God's favorite tune
But in your hands (that have strummed too much of the world)
It's a song of defiance, not devotion
Of anger, not angels
And to obey, the devotee must rebel

She who sings prays twice, they said
So I run the tape back
And raise my voice to multiply it fourfold
The blood runs from ears, to heart, to sky as an offering
Collected in a cymbal and returned to me renewed
As a heavy silence rolls in