The Quest

Right now, there are minutes when it seems like it’s impossible to keep up with all that is going on around us. There is something new seemingly every day and it’s hard to keep up emotionally. I found this poem to share tonight. I wrote it a while back, and I think it speaks to the journey. I continue to hold a light that while, at times, things feel overwhelming, scary, anxiety provoking at times, it’s all leading somewhere. We are on a journey as a nation, and we are all on a journey in our own lives. This poem reminds me of the fact that we are on this ‘journey,’ and while it can feel lonely and complicated, and isolating, when we go inward, take a breath, and think back to our purpose, it involves each other. We are all making our way together. Please keep that in mind as we travel forward. Be safe. Move forward with love.

The Quest

In the time of my avowal
of all my deepest needs.
I walked in circles
wearing the blue shirt
that fit me when I was thin of need.

The vowels fell out favor,
as my voice slowly was deported
and I wandered through the night.
The gulls laughed above me, every morning,
as if they knew the inside joke of life.

In the fury of their ridicule,
as I felt the last defiant shudder of my flesh.
I gained access to a grain of truth,
I understood all
beauty is served with some death.

I did not want to justify my gray
to a holy man who seemed confident
I be an instrument that makes noise
that becomes a sound people know.

The man could not name
what he called ‘the source we can’t know.’
A pause in the emptiness I was living in
as I reached out to seek out this innocent source, a
bsent of word or syllable.

The joy of touch, the reticence we have to temptation’s flame,
For all that laughs, sings, swears, and dreams,
For the juicy names, food is sex, race is history,
Faith is knowing you have grown tired of your name
and continuing on your journey all the same.

In the season of discontent,
where violence wore finest clothing,
In the heart of greatest Puritan,
writhed serpents without
a sense of sin it seemed.

In the ancient footsteps
of the reality of man,
The snow crunches beneath my feet.
not because it is winter, as seen by the leafless trees,
but because winter was inside of me.

I had come to the city,
like many men do, searching for luck,
with a young and mocking smile,
completely out of touch.

Then the holy man told me a story
as I came to him needing to believe in trust,
broken as a rust belt factory downtown
after the auto industry dried up.

Trying to get blood into my arteries and veins.
He told me of the risen Lazarus
and put his hand on me saying,
‘he’s just resting up their peacefully in the quiet of your brain.’

I told him, “I don’t know what I came for.
I’m not even sure I know my name.”
He smiled softly and said,
“You all say the same.”