Here is a poem I recently wrote. It is more about the end of summer, than the beginning of fall, but appropriate right now anyway.
You may here echoes of my earlier post on fishing.
I hope this blesses you, inviting you to glimpse the sacred all around you.
And I’m not just whistling Dixie here,
your progressive redneck preacher,
Micah
= = = =
Cosmological Constant
“Split a log and I am there;
lift a stone and you will find me”
So, they tell me, you have promised.
But I remember my little hands,
fingers growing blackened and dirty
from splitting rain-softened logs,
in which I found
but damp worlds unexpected
grubs and bugs crawling in tiny colonies
dug deep into ancient wood
which were as busy and full of life
as the exhaust filled asphault streets
which are surrounded not by echoing bird song
or crunch of leaves
but the squeal of tire and honk or horn.
Stones I then lifted
only to feel damp earth beneath
full of red worms
that wriggled wrapping round my fingers
as tight as that red forget-me-not string
I once placed on my pinkie
to remember an upcoming birthday.
I cannot but wonder
had I heard you whisper those words then,
while gathering those night-crawlers, crickets, and grubs
preparing to ride with daddy
to the lake behind Uncle Charles’ old place
in search of bass, catfish, and brim,
might I have thought
that those insect eyes
I found staring back at me
were yours,
the very eyes of God?
I remember too,
while sitting with Cecil
in biology class
watching
that drop of water, pressed into thin slide,
expanding under borrowed lens
into a world
where little galaxies
of amoebas, bacteria, and algae
danced as if across some new-found patch of sky
just like the schools of fish
daddy and I watched when, our chore done,
we sat pole, in hand, waiting for our first bite.
Those moments I would look up
surrounded by the song of owl cries and bobcat calls
mingling with the music of overeager crickets
who were unaware of their fallen brothers
hanging like victims of some forgotten war
upon our fishing hooks
and I would witness
the same dance there,
in pinpoints of light
circling a crescent moon
as bright and radiant as the lights
of Los Angeles were
when they gleamed beneath the lookout point
in the La Crescenta hills
where my wife and I later sat
in soft embrace.
progressiveredneckpreacher 