There were times in my long life
when I made an idol out of reason’s war,
and there were times when I bowed
before the flow charts of the mystical.
I have commanded fire from heaven
as though it could be contained in a Ball jar
with nail holes poked in the lid
to light my room in the demon night.
And I have tried to save the world
on a horse named Rocinante.
Traveling these roads,
I have come to the point at last
where I am simply not interested
in a diety who needs me
for anything at all.
Because as I moved over the morning waters
the sky was navy, heavy with rain.
I watched the sun divide three spun pewter clouds,
then toss yellow in buckets over a rise of maples.
Beauty stole all of my breath, then used it
to tease the dew grass into a frosting;
while against the slumber of the inner woods,
handfuls of confetti light were suspended.
Then, in the close, I found a little fern
growing in the soft black shade,
velvet head bent fibonacci in prayer.
Touching her was a holy delicacy,
so I knelt, reigning brute breath.
Pink-veined and shy,
her hundred graduated fingertips
impressed found strings of light,
making the notes of three hymns.
Into the cool dark stirring she sang
only what ran through her veins,
no more, no less.
“Tis is a gift to be simple,
Tis a gift to be free,”
in a voice so sweet,
that I was inclined to dig my roots down
into the loam beside her, and become a disciple
baptized by spots of fallen summer sun.
The Maker of all these wonders came close.
He laid aside the making
that makes my heart look
long and long,
and He became as One made Himself.
Seeing this, I was undone.
Because it was too much grace
for hands as rough as mine.
At His feet I relinquished my battle swords
and my divining rods,
and my fishing nets,
to sit in the green, wild woods all morning,
and become a vessel filled.
