I Shall See You

I Shall See You

(“Now you are going through pain, but I shall see you again and your hearts will thrill with joy—the joy that no one can take away from you.” John 16:22 [J. B. Phillips])

Another night and another dream where somehow everything I attempt
goes partly wrong somehow.
Letters of intent that scare me out of my wits,
a plow that pulls me through the backcountry fences
onto private property where every eye can see.

Another morning when the pain wakes me early,
keeps me prone till noon and will not let go. A violent
season
that my brain invented, and no other brain can diagnose.

Some questions are impaled, some answers are so veiled
they mock the slightest turn of the mouth. Every phone call
used to send me
into broken twig apprehension,
and now that the phone doesn’t ring the
dreams
supply the same intentions, driving sleep from the cells
that need duplication. But the tiny thoughts that
still find expression
are turning like neutrinos undiscovered until
the atoms were sliced like cheese.

I will not talk of my faith, as if I possessed it like real estate;
I will not answer as if I owned anything at all.
I will not speak of circles unbroken when every chain link
seems to come apart at the seams.
(Like the disciples, I can huddle behind locked doors
as long as is needed.)

I do not see You well, and my search is even weaker;
but You see me, the weary and broken seeker.
I do not comprehend, I can barely compose a tune;
but You show up, broken and risen from the tomb

With wounds so visible there is no mistaking Your identity.
The room shakes at the intensity of fire that carries the ash
into rivers that run beneath our senses.

We will sleep again, dream again, and certainly
go wrong again and again.
But You-Who-See-Us again take our trembling letters
of resignation
and rewrite us again and again.