Word of Mouth

Word of Mouth

by Emily Ruth Hazel

Then God leans over the cubicle wall

and says, Anyone thirsty?

All you nine-to-fivers,

you coffee-carrying assistants

holding together corporate empires—

come to the water cooler.

I’ll give you something to talk about,

more to take home than a paycheck.

All you hardworking construction crews

standing by the roadside

in the shimmer of the noonday heat—

come out tonight. Drinks on me!

All you underpaid nannies

pushing strollers in the park,

sweet-talking toddlers into napping

so you can gather your thoughts

like laundry flung about a bedroom;

and all you parents at the water fountain

hoisting your children

to reach that cool stream,

stop and take a sip yourself.

All you drought-weary farmers,

you who have invested everything

tending crops that refuse to grow—

come outside, the clouds are hanging heavy.

When what you’ve prayed for

finally falls, you’ll stand in the fields

with your mouths open,

echoing the earth’s own sigh of relief

as the soil absorbs the long-awaited rain.

Come, all you teachers tying knots

at the ends of your ropes, all of you

buried under lesson plans and papers to correct

and ruled by the rosy assumption

that catching up grade levels

is a simple game of hopscotch,

the pressure on you

like that which makes diamonds out of coal—

And all you college students

living on Ramen noodles and PBR,

surfing the waves of adrenaline

as you cram for exams,

struggling to stay upright

and wondering if it’s worth it—

All you truck drivers

saying goodbye to your families again,

your headlights pushing back the dark,

the radio keeping you company

as you watch another midnight disappear

in your rearview mirror—

All of you deserve a rest.

So come, put your work aside,

and be refreshed:

come with your glasses raised,

and I will revive your spirits.

I will open the spigot in the cask of the sky.

Come on, all you marathon runners

at the back of the pack, legs rippling

as you limp up Heartbreak Hill, panting, spent,

wiping the sting of sweat from your eyes—

I’m over here, cheering you on,

handing you water and oranges.

You who depend on coffee to wake you up

and cigarettes to calm you down;

you who can’t afford to need favors

because of your bad credit;

you who are tired of standing on buses,

who are on your feet eight hours a day

ringing up other people’s groceries

and have no budget left for food

until next Friday—let your children buy milk

without lunch money. Then come,

pile your shopping carts high

at no charge! Bring home enough

to make dinner for friends.

*

Why labor for what doesn’t satisfy,

squandering your energy

on what cannot nourish or sustain you?

Why waste your hard-earned cash

on cotton candy—a momentary pleasure, too sweet,

that dissolves on your tongue,

leaving you hungrier than you were before?

Why do you spend precious dough

on what is not bread?

I’ve seen you staring into your brightly lit

refrigerators, surveying their contents

as if they hold your future.

I know where you stash the chocolate

and the bourbon, self-prescribed remedies

for stress, insecurity, exhaustion.

I know what you reach for

when you’re hungry for approval

and something resembling intimacy;

when you ache to be coupled,

and when you are lost in loneliness

even in marriage; when the keen edge

of disappointment slices you open;

when you can’t seem to wash away

the residue of shame

under all your failures.

You kowtow to the god of your stomach,

gorge yourselves and still want more.

You fill up on empty calories

that spoil your appetite for truth

while waiting for the real meal to arrive.

I’ve come to offer you something better,

to serve you a different kind of comfort food.

Come with listening spirits

and learn from me how to eat well.

Come, enjoy authentic flavors;

redefine delicious. I will feed you

only the finest ingredients,

ripe and in season, organically grown.

Come to the wedding banquet:

let your soul delight in the gifts of abundance.

Come hungry, and receive a clean plate

every time you ask. Come shameless

with your Tupperware ready for leftovers.

*

Listen closely, you whose ears

have been clogged, your inner ears inflamed,

a tiny, restless ocean trapped inside—

and you who have turned on the white noise

of the television, pretending not to hear me,

so sure that I would hurl a harsh word at you

or misjudge who you are. I understand

the pain of being misunderstood:

you think you know me,

but when was our last conversation?

How many times have I tried to reach you

and you have not answered?

You have felt the pulsing in your pocket

and ignored it. Sometimes you listen for a second,

then hang up quickly, thinking

there isn’t a real person on the other end,

just some recorded message

that’s irrelevant to you.

Or you hear a voice, and you assume

it’s someone trying to sell you

something you don’t want, or a prank call

that you’re not about to fall for

—the way you prank call heaven

when you say, Oh my God—

but it’s me on the line.

How can you not recognize

the voice of one who loves you?

Even now, if you call me

while the phone is still warm in my hand,

I’ll answer on the first ring.

If you seek me out, you will find me;

I won’t play hard to get.

*

Come to me, you who are out of gas,

you whose lives are on layaway,

whose hearts have gone bankrupt,

whose faith has run dry—

you who have searched for yourselves

as if you were lost coins

in between couch cushions;

and you who have tossed pennies

in a fountain of hope,

only to see it be drained for the season,

its springs uneternal after the first freeze.

You whose lights have been shut off,

who have boarded up the windows of your souls

as if your bodies were deserted houses—

you stumble around unseeing;

your glasses are useless.

You bark your shins and blame me,

but it’s you who have closed your eyes.

Come, open the curtains

over your calloused hearts,

and I will pay off your back bills,

restore your power, and give you

new lenses to look through.

*

Let the runaways return to me—

the parent who waits by the window, heartsick,

who catches a glimpse of the child

staggering home, rehearsing apologies,

and abandons all dignity, sprints to embrace

the one whose wandering heart has wounded—

the God who goes beyond

forgiveness, the God who knows

how to throw a party.

Come back to me,

the God who leaves the light on for you,

even when I know

you won’t be home tonight.

My offer stands even for the cruel and corrupt,

the calculating buzzards—let them come

and have their criminal records shredded,

throw to the curb their crooked ways

of getting by, the stained and broken chairs

and itch-infested mattresses

with which they once furnished their lives.

Let them leave behind the stench

of their old garbage baking in the sun

and travel light as they take a new road.

What can I say? If I look like a fool

for spreading such a lavish feast of love

before those who are bound

to crush me again

under their retreating heels,

it is simply because

I am a God who longs, like you,

for something more, weak with desire

to lean close, to be known.

You who sit in the back

and stand on the fringes,

thinking no one sees you—

when you turn toward me,

even the slightest shift, I notice.

And when you speak to me,

be it a yell or a whisper, I will listen.

I linger in the hallway, hoping to be let in.

You open the door, then close it again,

unlock the deadbolt,

but won’t take off the chain.

I reach for you, and my hand is caught

in the hinge of your indecision.

Yet I am committed to you,

my faithfulness founded on bedrock—

a love that is built to endure disaster,

not a flimsy model of affection

constructed with Popsicle sticks

but a love that is high and wide,

fortified, strong enough to shelter you.

Your love is like the morning mist,

like the early dew that disappears.

Still, I wring my heart out for you,

drench you in a deluge of grace

while you dabble in the shallows.

You talk a good line,

but your words are made of lace.

Your fingers are always in some other pie.

But if you will acknowledge me

with more than the occasional nod in my direction,

if you’re ready for honest conversations,

if you will humbly offer yourselves

as living prayers, and turn

from your unfaithful ways,

then I will hear from heaven

and forgive you. I will take you back,

gather you into my arms:

you will be my people,

and I will be your God. If you let me,

I will set your broken bones,

clean your wounds, smooth healing ointment

over all the places you’ve been burned.

*

I’m calling from the other side of night.

If you choose me, I will bring you out of hiding—

out of a life of crouching and ducking your head,

enslaved by fear and cycles of destruction—

out through trap doors, secret gates,

alleys, and back roads.

No yanking by the collar or twisting of arms.

You will go forth in peace,

and I will lead you—

not into a beige, uninspired life,

but into an adventure,

the kind that keeps you guessing

with every turn of the page.

I will make your minds more spacious.

When you cross over into free country,

you’ll run with your arms wide open,

leaping and shouting

like children, unselfconscious.

Even the wallflowers will bloom—

closet dancers, those who save their singing

for the shower—people from all walks of life,

everyone who has tasted this freedom,

joining together in a parade of praise.

Mountains and hills

and the birds that nest among them

will burst into colorful song,

all creation celebrating

your return, your going forward new.

You’ll hear my Spirit

rustling through the trees;

my breath will fill you

as it fills the spaces in between the leaves.

*

You whose lives are like seltzer gone flat,

reduced to an endless, meaningless to-do list,

I will surprise you with joy

that comes bubbling up from the bottom—

the kind of joy that sneaks up on you

like a hug from behind

while you’re leaning over the sink

washing dishes, or responding

to a flood of business emails,

water to be bailed out of your basement.

And when you welcome me

into the everyday mess, the peace I give you

will not be the kind that sits smugly

at an empty desk

with its hands serenely folded,

but the kind that sidles up unexpectedly

in the midst of jackhammers and traffic

and your partner’s latest rant

and your boss’s overwhelming expectations

and the children bickering in the dark

when they’re supposed to be asleep

and the unknown results

from a blood test, the worry

that gnaws on the edge of your mind.

I will show you how to stand

in the middle of it all, in a circle of calm,

like the shade of a live oak

planted in a busy intersection.

*

My work is a mystery to you:

you can sow seeds, but only I

can make them grow.

The way a new life forms

in the womb of a woman

is to you a wonder beyond words.

So how could you fully grasp

all that I am preparing to birth

within the hidden places of your hearts?

My thoughts see farther than your thoughts,

and my ways diverge from yours.

My slowest thoughts drive faster than light,

less than a breadth apart

on cloverleaf interchanges,

and never collide.

My ideas fly seamless figure-eights

miles above you, the infinity sign

my signature in the sky.

My dreams for you are far beyond

what you have dared to imagine.

*

For the moment, your mouths are parched;

you beg for water, finding none.

But I won’t leave you thirsty.

I am the one who knows your need

before the word is on your tongue.

As surely as the sun rises, I will appear;

as surely as the spring rains come,

after winter, I will come to you.

I will open up rivers on the barren hills,

the heights of desolation;

I will change nature’s course

and break the laws of gravity for you.

I will make springs flow in the valleys,

turn the desert into pools of water.

Instead of stumbling into poison ivy,

you will find the cooling balm of aloe.

Instead of toiling like Adam

after exile from Eden,

only to force thorns and thistles from the ground—

instead of a briar patch of curses

to claw your way out of, torn and bleeding—

instead, you’ll discover a field of blessing,

orchards and vineyards,

gardens overflowing with flowers.

Where only scraggly desert scrub would grow,

myrtle will flourish—each fragrant, white blossom

exploding with beauty, pollen-dusted stamens

shooting from the center like a spray of light.

Myrtle will cure your infections,

clear the airways so you can breathe again,

protect the lining of your health

so easily eaten away by anxiety.

In the wilderness through which you’ve walked

I will cultivate promise.

With my bare hands

I will uproot the thorn bushes,

and in their place plant strong and stately trees:

cypress, to stand as thousand-year testimonies,

green through all the seasons;

olive and acacia; sweet-smelling juniper and pine;

redwoods towering in majesty,

drawing your eyes to me.

Cedars and sequoias will thrive,

evidence of transformation

in what was once a wasteland.

I will write my name across this new creation

just as I have inscribed your hearts,

so that everyone may know

whose work it is—that I, God,

am the one who has accomplished this,

who has bent impossibility backwards

like a wire coat hanger,

reviving the landscapes of your lives.

Those who know you

will recognize the change. Even strangers

will come to you with questions,

seeing in you the spark of the Spirit.

*

As the snow that slowly descends

the escalator of the sky

and does not ascend again

until there is a thaw; and as the rain

that showers the earth does not evaporate

before it soaks in, trickles down

below the surface, and waters the deepest roots;

so the words of my mouth go out to the people

in every part of the world—winged words

sent out like homing pigeons,

tiny scrolls tied around their ankles.

They cannot land without leaving

an impression in the sand,

and they will not return to me

without delivering the message of hope.

My promises are never void;

backed by the treasury of heaven,

the checks I write will never bounce.

And wherever you are,

my words will run ahead of you

to open the door when you arrive.

From my lips to your ears,

this is news to quench your soul,

an invitation to be passed on. This is grace—

not something you can buy bottled,

but something to be shared,

a cupful at a time.

And as a paper cup that holds cold water

is passed from hand to hand,

these words are for you,

the thirsty ones sitting in the back.