The Assignment

The Assignment

(“I have seen a limit to all perfection, but your commandment is exceedingly broad.” Psalm 119:96)

While waiting for the ribbons and awards,
the long speeches and large completions of appointed
projects assigned to portray (I hesitate to say) the
meaning of life;
I grew antsy, shifting my weight on the slap-down
metal chairs with half a back and unbalanced legs,
and my spine contracted as thank-yous dragged on
from noon till the heat of the day settled about us
like a sloppy hug from a field worker at the end of
a summer’s day.

The judges had spent their volunteer hours comparing
length and width, perspective and wit, color and the
best use of objects found. Poets scratched with pebbles,
novelists broke their fingers, photographers, it is true,
pinholed with cantaloupes and trashed food wrappers.
Oh, and the artists, the paint and brush, dabbed at
tree trunks with chewing gum.

That’s all a lie…I made it up as I wrote, poetic
license which I paid for and has never yet been revoked.

But I have waited longer with background noise my
only inspiration,
to find what is the next line You will offer,
the next explanation
for a world so perfect, a world so crackly,
with tenants who speak as followers of Your Son,
but will walk out after five minute’s suggestion He
meant what He said,
when He said that part about
loving enemies and blessing the worst with
the best we can offer.

So, I stay listening and will arise, I mean it in hope,
to kiss the next enemy, cloaked or Wall Street clothed,

With the Kiss of my Older Brother whose ways
are found perfect, and perfectly impossible. Yet
what are we if we refuse to attempt the steepest path
and peace.