Beginning the Prayer
I stand facing Mecca the house all around me parallel with everything hands up to my ears the Prayer begins Hands across chest…
The hardwood trees knocked to see if He was there
and He replied
but He was not there
And the rainfall straight down sought Him
and He Spoke
but He was not where they were
And the fires reached skyward to find Him
with their snaky fingers and His Voice could be
heard entwining among them
but He was not
where embers lay
And oceans rolled and rerolled endlessly seeking
His pleasure and He assured them and their
punctual surfs
but He was not among them
And dolphins dove and heard His dolphin laughter
but He eluded them
And falcons looked with beady eye and heard His
breathing in the wind
but He was not confined
And we look and listen exhort and even
try to command
and in filters the texture of Him
from time to time when our
hearts burst with it or our minds reach their
natural limits
But He is not here in a
here sense
and He is not elsewhere in an
elsewhere sense
Lifting the arm off the record doesn’t silence Him
though He did not speak
And yet His
Word was Spoken
Just as this world is His and Him though it
seems only a token of what
He is
And He is here
but you might not know it
Though His traces leave traces
that openly show it
8/27/2006 (from In the Realm of Neither)
Categories: Poems