Psalm 6: On the Rocks

Lord, don't be mad at me or anything - 
I need to tell you something but don't go all Job on
me and be like, "You think you have problems? 
I'll give you a problem."
It's just that I am exhausted.
David tells you his whole being
is shaken with terror and I'm not 
scared, but I've been shaken and 
stirred and this isn't a recipe for a mixed drink-
just some verbs to get at what  it feels like to live
that Proverbs 39 life.

"I didn't say you had to be that woman
all at once," is what I bet you're gonna say back,
and that's sweet,
but what I really want you to say is, "Those aren't my words,
a man wrote that and I couldn't stop him because of 
the whole free will thing. It's been one of my more haunting
inventions."

And so then I'd tell you about the smashed watermelon 
in the grocery store parking lot - 
bright red and green all over the grey - 
and I thought, "She was holding too much. She was trying
to put away too much," and isn't that such a judgmental statement?
To assume what was done wrong,
to tell a woman to just put something down.
God, as if.

But this is the day You gave us
this is the day You made
and as broken and smashed 
as it is, today, 
there is watermelon
and it's the kind with seeds -
I can see them right there on the parking lot pavement -
the kind that is meant to be eaten in the backyard
on a day when the sky is blue and the grass is (finally) green
and we get to take and eat
and see who can shoot the seeds the farthest. 
Why are we trying to make seedless watermelon, Lord?
Do you know?
There's no flavor and there's no fun in a seedless watermelon.
I want the inconvenient grace of the mess

So I buy a watermelon
and blueberries and peaches too.
The cashier holds the watermelon and says,
"A lady was just in here and bought one but it dropped in the parking lot."
"I know! I saw it! I parked right next to it!" I say, and I am probably too exuberant over this fact because the cashier smiles and nods
and we are silent for a minute but because I can't ever let a thing go I say,
"But she came back."
"Huh?" the cashier says.
"She came back and told you."
"You know the watermelon broke," I tell her, "because she came back and told you."
Lord, I am Sherlock Holmes figuring out this mystery, aren't I?
"Yeah," the cashier says, "I told her to get another one;
these things happen."

The watermelon is the last
of the groceries
I take out of the car.
I hold it with both hands 
and walk as carefully as I can 
but also rushing because there is so much to do
and I am so very tired
and I can't wait to eat this watermelon
and shoot the seeds across the yard
and I don't want this fruit to break
and I want to believe all will be ok if it does.