The Whispers are Fainter

 

The Whispers are Fainter

(“’I am the Lord's servant,’ said Mary; ‘may it happen to me as you have said.’ And the angel left her.” Luke 1:38)

The whispers are fainter now than they ever have been,
the attraction to divining the exact instructions for my
next move
has waned so only the mud remains to be seen,
mucking up everything I once believed.

I wanted to be the Lord’s servant too, and blew every
opportunity until
I was set adrift so far beyond the crowds
that the only voices I ever heard
were the voices I always fought with
in my head.

It is likely my ears will go numb from
disuse
and all I’ll hear are the digital hums
that dig their way past the defenses (happy
images
of palm trees and beaches as sleep washes over
me.)

Transparency is all I ever wanted you to see,
but now I am embarrassed to say I do not
perceive my own inner workings. I once had
a toy,
the visible man,
a clear plastic body assembled with everything
from skeleton to skin. Blue veins, red arteries,
white bones and all the organs including a perfectly
dormant brain. His liver and lungs sometimes smelled
of airplane glue. It’s likely he died on my dresser somewhere
between the Monkees and Iron Butterfly.

And now I am stagnant and feel as lifeless as my boyhood model;
my soul has shrunk or is shrouded by decades of ash while
onlookers applaud my survival after the crash.

And still I ask, “how has it all happened, and what was it
you said that set me on this motionless moment?”

And perhaps another time I would have signed it;
your loyal servant. And scratched my signature in
plain view.