A Silent Decade

A Silent Decade

(“Then God told him, ‘I will certainly be with you, and this is the proof that I am the one who is sending you: When you have led the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God here upon this mountain!’” Exodus 3:12)

It has been a silent decade, a desert of hearing,
a midnight of seeing and the oceans are grey, the river
is iron,
and the oars do not cut to take me downstream.

You are not to blame, though You speak much softly than I prefer.
If I leave here, if I find a new abode with the same household but
wrapped with connections I’ve missed, how do I know

You will go?

And how do I know

I won’t be missed?

I’m too broken to start anew, too old to venture a capital campaign;
The locusts are in my ears and the wasps are in my head,
the brain waves, though never measured, are surely morse code jazz.

I want to walk the marble halls with my sons; the coffee and scones,
carroty beers and earthen pages of books we found just hours ago.

I want to unload my decades-old burden and walk the Pacific Trail.
ha! I do not move further than from lounger to icebox when blackmailed
by my pain.

I do not move alone. I am tied forever in love. And she has always tagged
along.
But it’s always been my song. And now, when I need a new place, somewhere
to be born again,
I cannot ask her to carry my tune again.

Promise me the rains will fill my longing. Pledge Your presence though my senses
tingle alone. Go or stay, I need a way to be unwrapped completely and unafraid of

The self I’ve always been.

The self I’ve always been.