It took a long time,
But I found my quiet again.
I wrap it around me and wait for God alone.
He is my fastness, quick keep, faith’s fort,
My rest and release.
How many of my battered days
Slipped soundlessly to nothing?
How long was I a man of strings
Pushing through a hedge without end?
What did I do to deserve the ire
Of so many people I hardly know?
If I fall, will they rise?
Or will they just be rid of me
And free to swallow down
The loves I ceded and deck
Their brows like crowns
With the things I lost?
They open their mouths to smile
But only trouble tumbles out.
Stillness isn’t easy,
But it is all I have left.
So I will wait here
In silence
For God alone.
In the morning I come downstairs
While the house sleeps.
I make the coffee in the dark.
I pray and fret and watch
From the bay window as
God’s ghost moon tumbles through
What’s left of the sky.
I ravel myself back. I breathe.
I watch the martins circle in the soft dawn.
I learn the first lesson again:
God is a refuge; rest in him.
My fears run in a small circle.
I weigh them and watch them rise
Like the smoke of my morning’s altar.
I have heard you, God,
Once or twice, but clear and true
And I am still ringing with it.
You seek the lost.
You guard the weak.
You bring everyone the harvest
Of their frantic days.
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