With spindly legs—swinging off a pew—I knew
everything—about Jonah and the whale, Matthew—
tax-collector, and five smooth stones in a young boy’s hand.
But I did not know
Tibetan prayer flags
flapping—in Nepalese mountains,
or the hands that hung those flags
or the whispered prayers diffused.
My soles never touched the Himilayas'
still, quiet Hummm.
David, I knew, danced bare before the Lord,
but your dance is less than worship
with four wheels strapped to your feet—
a sphere of resplendent light flashing
with a “Hey Mickey, you’re so fine,”
spinning like a Sufi with arms upraised, entwined
with the Beloved:
“You’re so fine you blow my mind.”
And I don’t know what Minnie’s boy
has to do with Divine Love, but Rumi said it this way:
Pay homage if it brought you to His arms—
So I would bow to Sundays with itchy socks and “Amazing Grace,”
and mama at the piano, daddy at the pulpit;
to five smooth stones and the belly of a tall, tall tale,
or a fish and a boy impelled—
by a Mystery
I cannot explain.
And I would bow
to those prayer-imbued banners
hanging in the mountains and the hands that hung them,
and the still, quiet Hummm
that filled these lungs with air to sing
“I am Thine, O Lord, I have heard Thy voice,
And it told Thy love to me;
but I long to rise in the arms of faith
and be closer drawn to Thee.”
In my bed at night—with a window raised—
black sky seeping through the screen like melted ice cream—
and stars—shining like a cat’s eye
Make me wanna hide; make me wanna cry—anything but be seen—
Or maybe—just to be seen—
And heard—and known—
“Oh Love—that will not let me go
I rest my weary soul—in Thee.”
The Universe is not as simple as ‘the Bible tells me so.’
No—there is spirit and there is mind,
and a planet pregnant with lifted hands
that scream, that roar,
that breath “Please”
and “Thank you”
and “Yes”
to this Mystery we cannot understand—
we dare not overlook
each other—paying homage as we do.
What I have learned
in the years between zero and thirty—
how very different
we are
in our sameness,
how very human
we feel
in our houses,
our huts,
our brownstones
and park benches under the sky.
Three decades of birthing pains,
and pushing, groaning, for ten years more,
hoping, hoping, to be born before forty,
or else to have died
and died often—
seed, soil, rain like grace
and bursting life
in learning to die—
So this, this is birth—
I remember now—
like five smooth stones and skies of melting ice-cream,
like a dervish on roller-skates
soaked in mirrored light-divine—
“You’re so fine you blow my mind”—
and the still, quiet Hummm.
‘Tis so sweet,
‘tis so sweet.
R.A. Wittum, c. 2013
