"'Can you see anything?' And the man looked up and said, 'I can see people,
but they look like trees walking.' Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again;
and he looked intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly."
Mark 8:23-25
We cannot fit God
onto the palm of our notions:
pale, slivering sparks
we hold up
against His immense sweep of wildfire.
In our fumbling faith
we carry each other
in rickshaws of grace,
drag the battered beatitudes,
the inscrutable mystery,
the inscrutable mystery,
over the coals
of our unbelief;
hallowed in our blind wandering,
when we first begin to see
trees walking
as shifts of men.
I love the phrase "trees walking". This is a neat piece. The quatrains feel good and the near rhyme of "faith" and "grace" is lovely. I like how fire imagery appears in the first three stanzas ("sparks" "wildfire" and "coals"). The "palm" harkens back to Palm Sunday and the surprise of "notions" instead of perhaps an expected "hands" is exciting. We do seek to explain and/or contain God in a tidy, fixed box, don't we? But he will never fit there, no matter how much we shout. There's an interesting play between the "immense" God and the "wandering" "blind." It makes me wonder how much our efforts of faith and belief hallow us, and how much we are hallowed simply because we are the blind struggling to see. Thoughtful! This was fun to read! Many blessings, always...
ReplyDeleteThanks Amy. You are such an astute reader. So thankful for your wonderful attention on these poem prayers. And yes, we only see a small speck in a given lifetime and what a speck it is!!! Many blessings for you too!!! Happy Easter season!!!!
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