Oh brother

Last night i was in the kitchen and remembered the sound of angry silence in your childhood.

Oh brother,

Running running away, accumulating blisters on your heel and in your heart

Somewhere out there, there is something 

Vague you are searching for 

you will never find it running but you’ll try

With your tools and projects.

projects, always another one

Me, i micromanage.

Her, she people pleases.

You do that too, but 

Your escape of choice is the chicken coop, and the fence, then the garden boxes, and the cabinets, next the window, the mud kitchen, then the pond,

Come here, Brother

I am looking in your eyes and you are looking away.

Take off your jacket, hun.

Take it off

Take off your sadness, your deep qualms, hang them on

This hook right here, then come sit by the 

fire please.

(you’re wondering who you’d be without it)

It’s warmer with it on

but (darling the hearth is lit) 

think what you could build without it

(which tool which tool will fix this)

this lost feeling, the running away, the trying to prove, the troubled underneath

No tools, hun. 

You cannot run away from this fire

The thing you are searching for is in your own eyes

And in the eyes of your wife,

Don’t look away.

Watch your children, slowly, and slowly again,

You will find it in their sleeping faces and in her quiet tears but strong hand

Set down the fence you’re building 

In your yard and in your heart

Start right here in the rain and tell them

You’re hurt and sad and lost

– she’ll tell you she is too –

And notice how everything you’ve been looking for is in your hand when you hold theirs

Oh, brother we’ve been looking for you

And so has God

Will you run from him too?

He needs someone, just like you

The right man for the job (he has one for you, it's just what you've wanted)

Show him what you’ve got — 

show him your jacket and your tools, 

Show him the words you don’t muster and the path you haven’t found

Show him each blister

Each project

Show

Him

And then sit down quietly at your table and rest, smell the wood shavings from earlier today and hear the muted goats outside, til when they come up the stairs yelling Daddy and 

she looks you in the eyes with questions in her heart, 

this time,

my brother,

don’t look away.