Campfires and Timeless Tales

 Campfires and Timeless Tales

(“I will be a Father to you. You will be My sons and daughters, says the All-powerful God.” 2 Corinthians 6:18)

Entrusted with mere existence I
often
cannot keep from trying to control
time as if the hands on the clock
can be speeded up by my anxieties.
It does not pass, it flows like jet-streams
laden with weather.

On the days when I can lay my machinery
down
and simply listen to the cranking of the gears,
the creaking of the years,
the friction of time against space
I discover something far beyond the face
of things.
Far slower than the pace of things.
Far nearer, by the grace of things.
A table filled with aunts and uncles,
a yard filled with first degree cousins,
an afternoon filled with siblings who happen upon
the bbq we serve whenever the summer sneaks
up on us unaware.

Did you see your brother waiting to cross the street,
stalled on the corner because the light stays red?
Did you see your sister ragged in the corner,
breathing on the backstreets waiting for the
curfew to be lifted?

Did you see the Power. like. love.
Did you see the campfires lit on a thousand hills
with no fences around them? Did you see
the maternal love latent in the universe?
Did you see the paternal care lately calling to
all of us?

Did you stop and stay though the wind blew the
smoke in your face? Existence will not wait
while we measure the time in nitpicking packages of
hills to die on. Instead, we rely on
the stories told that take the whole night to tell

And do notice the hours slip away while we pass around
flagons of wine, crumbles of cheese,
and more bread than we need as we
hear the kindling crack.

And each new tale begins.