“I think this is probably the hardest thing to deal with,” he said,
and then, “whatever you choose, just make sure you are true to yourself –“
“that’s all that matters.”

Holding hands affirmed a life
Time wondering,
Watching, waiting, wanting,
Trued all the jarring angles
Even though my arms are long, and his are short,
All wariness, bitterness, dispelled.
My native wit, unpolished charm,
Bumbling stumbling burbling rolling out
We chip away at
Matters mean and great
Detached and riveted
Fixed and swinging.

Tell me, God,
Tell me how to love you both at once –
If I, your son, am known and loved, remembered, named and counted,
Spared within Your sight from all Your other sons,
Not globular but granular,
Not massed or indistinct,
Then I demand You hear this prayer.
If You are perfect You should reconcile now, not later – not after death, but now!
Me unprepared, vainglorious, intransigent, unfaithful, sightless, hopeless, angry and afraid
You came before by grace – to many – just as such
I would smother in the stinking belly of a whale,
I would pass through charring flame
(My dad once claimed he threw me to the wolves)
Let me wither from Your sight and shrink and fade and burn and die
I will not curse You or my birth or writhe indignant;

If truth is reason, give me reasons why.

If Your anointed say again “we just don’t know,”
Will I flee to, or from? This sharp comfort,
“we just don’t know,”
In the age of miracles, of fullness, attended by the living oracles
“we just don’t know”?
Who isn’t praying hard enough?
Who isn’t living up? Who here is unprepared?
What should we do but watch, want, wander,
Wither on the vine
Lose our way, and losing it
Make new friends, lovers, journeys,
Take faltering steps down faith’s last unlit stairway?
“we just don’t know,”
We just don’t what’s true.