They Are Not Lost

 

They Are Not Lost

(“He did not do many powerful works there because they did not put their trust in Him.” Matthew 13:58)

They are not lost, we have not hidden them;
they are mostly found unbidden within our perceptions.
And so the sun rises, and so the clouds spread their quilt
across the sky.
And so the trail narrows, and so the half-souls have
tried to understand the switchbacks you’ve taken
to arrive outside their bubbled cities and towns.

Do you see mercy in every ray of light, and the dance of grace
in the dust it brightens? Does the thunder and lightning
remind you of magnetic love that still is writing the
sacred sonnets, the divine poetry of the sky?

No longer beg, no longer moan, no longer be ashamed
of the sadness you’ve postponed because tears have run dry.
There are melodies inspired only by you,
there are lyrics with your name behind every puzzling line,
there are trees where you sat as a child,
there are bluejays to remind you of foothill
excursions to play in the snow.

There is something that lurks behind today’s silence,
there is a mother’s son that cries when you cannot,
there is a spirit that fills the void and the density,
there is a parent that fashions it all.

There is only the miraculous,
or there is not.