I’ve got a crush on Writing.

It’s bad.

It’s the kind you’re pretty sure would deepen to passion

if just given half a chance.

I’ve been dreaming of him forever,

but I’m afraid and I run

at the first sign of conversation,

never mind a commitment.

Sometimes I get up the nerve

to sit across the room from him,

gazing with longing,

heart pounding,

dropping my lashes coquettishly

every time he looks my way.

But when he approaches,

tries to speak to me,

I excuse myself to the ladies room

for a panic attack.

My best friend seems happily married to Writing.

I know they are still just honeymooning,

getting to know one another,

but anyone can see it’s true love.

I’m afraid to find that I love him,

but he doesn’t love me back.

In a labyrinth-like forest, 

pitchy-black and numbing, 

I come upon a fire. 

There’s a figure 

warming hands close in.

She smiles and gestures. 

I sit, 

watching sparks and smoke, 

letting the heat wrap 

around my spine.

She invites me to stay, 

rest, eat, sleep, 

near the fire.

 
I ask her name:

Hope, she replies.

 
And so I move on, 

for I know 

she is a will-o-the-wisp,  

incalculable and vacillating  

as the fog which settles 

and obscures the sight 

of what is right in front of you. 

  
Hope is not my friend, 

not in this wilderness. 

I’m on my own road,

walking, muttering dark words.

Haven’t you heard?

The worst has happened.

Hope is lost.

But then a traveler comes alongside,

puts himself in step with me.

His feet are dusty, too.

Something in me unfolds like paper

that was wadded up tight.

A spark snaps out of the flint of his words.

Smoldering begins from the dry kindling in my soul.

A flame spurts, catches, surges.

I look again, a little in awe, and

I see:

It’s You.

 

 

 

There is a sacred ringing in everything– 

a holy reverberation 

through the brass of humanity 

belying what seems to be, 

propelling me, 

telling me: 

peer beyond invisible.

Reach beneath the sordid dying of this world.

Listen for plangent life: 

willows, oaks and pines applaud

and river rocks cry out.

Hear true of true: 

a child singing in the dark.

Look to the morning star,  

shining for even one to see.

Hear the sonorous melody 

rolling out like laughter.

For the Holy Deep 

is calling out to deep.

And we must answer.