Sunday, February 13, 2011

In Amazement

And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters… (Genesis 1:2)
Crystal eyes, whose full perfection all the world amazes… (Shakespeare “Venus and Adonis”)



We see cracks in the pavement, little broken openings--
hairline fine—that run along sidewalks, blacktop, dirt paths,
deep, deep beneath the ground, into the earth, up
through home foundations, stone, brick, wood frames,
and windows.

We follow these cracks, barefoot, wandering
alone along broken roads backwards. We wander
wondering who we are and how we got here and how
we get back or move forward.

We forget, when moving and feeling behind somehow,
that all movement is forward and back, a rocking
like the chair the Lord sits in singing lullabies to our Spirit
as our Soul slowly finds its way home. A rocking,
like ocean waves pushing up toward shore and receding,

moving upon the earth to draw it into water.

And it is there, at the place where earth and water meet,
that God’s Spirit moves—one great hand-shaped cloud.
And the water becomes a blanket He inches up, over
our toes, our ankles, our legs, our torso,
our neck, our chin, our lips, our nose, our eyes,
our hairline

until completely covered, our breath stills
and we dream of open windows and rainwater
filling rails, flowing over and flooding
our most intimate rooms.

These dreams, like waves or falling rocks
strike our forehead, rendering us unconscious
so that we float in a daze, spiraling up, up, up
to where the Three Kings of Orion sparkle like crystal
or like the eyes of an unblemished bride.

In amazement, we see a band of angels, pure winged white lights,
coming down like the watery wall of a water fall
through the many-layered atmosphere to touch
the center of the earth, that fiery core, then rise up
again to God.

And we feel, for a moment, the world spinning,
our head in a whirl as one great finger reaches
down to seal the cracks our feet have walked upon
in every place we’ve wandered.