Spirit/Manna/Water

Spirit/Manna/Water

(“You sent Your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold Your manna from their mouths, and You gave them water for their thirst.” Nehemiah 9:20)

I didn’t choose to take the long way home,
though some of the detours were cause and effect.
I didn’t pick the silence of isolation,
the pixelated memories,
the texted correspondence that
still defies expectation.
The explanation would take longer than
the moments we have left.

I’d rather wander with you, friend or friends,
and not talk, but share water from the spring,
a loaf under the pine,
and the Presence that, in spite of the winding,
or perhaps, because of the wandering,

Still whispers the name that captured me helpless
at the beginning of the day.

I didn’t choose the long way home,
but friend or friends,
if you will go with me we’ll
take it slowly and feel each ray of sun
lancing through the branches to
touch our faces the way every face
should be touched.

I didn’t choose the long way home;
but, walk with me awhile.
Sing your song to me, I will not interrupt.
Or speak of pain buried beneath the years.
I promise I will hear and stop our walk long enough
to see the tears fall near the single-file ants along the trail.

I didn’t choose the long way home,
but I need your time right now. I need your shoulder now,
the very weight of your presence, the very warmth of your voice,
the vulnerable quiver just before the words we speak when we
do not know what to speak at all.

I’m taking the long way home, will you come with me?
We walked the hills of Contra Costa, the tundra of North Dakota,
the mud and beaches of the evergreen Northwest, and now
I need the company of every piece of bread we’ve shared,
every sip of water or wine,
and every transcendent moment when we divined
there was more to the Northern Lights than science
can define.