A Song so Incomplete

 A Song so Incomplete

(“Embarrassingly I admit that next to them we must look very weak!” 2 Corinthians 11:21a [The Message])

I wanted to dash off a quick note to tell you
how sorry I am
I never brought the hammer down
or
embarrassed your misgivings on purpose.
Was I too weak for that?

It also has been brought to my attention that,
because I refused to force certain wanderers
to return
I lost a few sheep along the way.
Was I too silent for that?

Here and now,
as I look back,
I only wish I had whispered more often,
embraced the granite wills,
and let them find their way
among the walls and mazes of
uncertainty.
I hope I refrained and left no punched holes
in the pulpit.

I wanted you to see me without my disguise,
a fool, a clown, a brow with lines of doubt
even when faith was the word. I wanted to
unmask myself
before myself
became glued too far forward.

I hope you recognize in these lines,
not some guru eating gelato,
but another ant on the hill trying to
make sense of a world
far too large to paint in a lifetime.

The few I hammered only hid their
mask beneath more greasepaint and
shoe polish. The few who hammered me
never asked where I am living now.

Come, let us design a song so
incomplete it
leaves us nothing at all
to brag about.