Wade

In a white truck, weeks before Christmas,
rain pouring down on all sides,
setting the windshield wipers ablaze,
"Song for a Winter's Night" by Sara McLachlan
played over and over
as we chatted about our love lives,
still unborn in many ways,
and seasonally appropriate perhaps:
we were preparing "him" room
by playing into and eventually clearing away
false fantasies for family hooked on notions of grandeur,
played out in painstaking neglect.

Our hearts were motivated for something in the song;
neither one of us could help hitting the repeat button
again and again as we ventured toward
Cactus on College where mango salsa watered our mouths
and sexy dyke couples dazzled our eyes.

We would come to, over the years, at different times,
the same hospital hallways and didactic sessions,
same seminary professors and theology texts,
looking for and perhaps answering back to
the mid-western religions of our youth, so compounded by
fear and mistrust, so jam-packed with familiarity and comfort.
We would come to, over the years, at different times
each other, broken-open and other times broken-hearted,
looking for and perhaps providing something with longevity
that could sustain the highs and lows of living honestly.

So today you are walking with Pastor Wilkes my former
mentor and boss and I am sitting where you used to sit,
tending the men you used to tend, while listening to
Sarah McLachlan once more. This time as she sings
"I would be happy just to hold the hands I love
on this Winter's Night with you," I'm thinking of the family prayer
we will say together tomorrow night, finger-locked with the families
we've courageously built from the rubble
of our origins--and the title "Thanksgiving"
takes on new meaning.