autopsy

I've been contemplating a lot the divorce that so often occurs in our culture between the heart and the head. So many times we use our logic to unravel complexities of faith, life, theology. It is so easy in our culture to comfortably analyze and blog and spit out information and Scripture and arguments that don't necessarily transform our lives, relationships or attitudes on any deep or meaningful level. I'm learning more and more (and over and over) that knowledge is not just an intellectual assent to an idea, but a deeply-rooted way of living that proceeds from our inner life. It translates into outward behavior and choices.

Proverbs 2 says:
"My son, if you accept my words
and store up my commands within you,

2 turning your ear to wisdom
and applying your heart to understanding,

3 and if you call out for insight
and cry aloud for understanding,

4 and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,

5 then you will understand the fear of the LORD
and find the knowledge of God.

6 For the LORD gives wisdom,
and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding."

I got in a minor car accident last week. I hit my head so I wanted to make sure I didn't have a concussion so I checked myself into the ER. While I was sitting there on the hospital bed, my mind began to wander and I wrote this.

autopsy

hush, now.

we creep along in the dead of night
the moon scowling at our mischief
or perhaps we only imagine
its suspicious disdain

stealthily, secretly
we grasp and pull
your broken body from the tree
carry you deftly
and importantly
away, away
from familiar claws

that we might perform
your autopsy.

she reasons and interprets
with methodical glee
at the moment of your expiration
when you breathed your last
that the confusion and the loss
bellowed deeply from the bowels of hell
as a cry for the scarred and the lost
and the abused
and a rousing wail
against the plastic
and the whitewashed
and the unchanged

i think she's right.

but upon her life
you leave no so much mark
only a philosopher's kiss
hollow and rational
and reasonable
which stales the air
and dwindles passion

silently divorcing
her heart from her head

i watch her
hearken in her own illusion
of you but in part
and never in whole

i see your image
torn asunder
a mass of throbbing, pulsing
flesh and veins and bones
disembodied
in cold calculation

and i find
as i diagnose
her pitiable, blinded state
and mine

that we have quite dissected
the wrong Being.