Glimpses

Glimpses

(“Their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he disappeared from their sight.” Luke 24:31)

Straight toward the light, reflections that pierced my eyes,
glittering arrows rode each ripple of the barely disturbed river.
I drove the muddy road, red clay and silver sage, to the butte where
we had planned to meet.

I wish I had kept the appointment more often; it happened in my wishes
more often than in my shoes. I wish I had ignored the sign in the winter
the barred the way up the trail to motor vehicles. I wish I had walked,
though winded,
and kept the appointment on a sunny January noon.

The Missouri bends a little south from Williston to Bismarck,
and through Fort. Berthold and New Town. It knifes a line between
Parshall and Twin Buttes; families only fifteen miles away as the crow flies
travel two hours across the bridge best viewed from Crow Flies High Butte.
(Happily in winter, during the best and deep freezes, grandmothers drive
the ice beneath the bird’s straightline map in the sky.

I caught glimpses, mostly in summer, of nearly Montana, alone
with the wind. My intentions were good, to fill my ears with Your songs,
fill my eyes with Your diorama, fill my nose with Your sharp spices
and aromatic weeds. I would meet You there.

Every time I looked East up the river, every time the sun blanketed my face,
I hoped to see You, have a moment with You, break the bread with You,
pack my sleeping bag and hunt the Northern Lights until I knew You
had kept the appointment as well.

I caught glimpses; and glimpses would be enough if I had paid more attention
to the invitations tucked away but never written down.

I do not need to reconstruct a single moment; glimpses can be enough
when the glimpse overflows with love caromed from one end of
history to the other.