Looking For the Cottage

 
Looking For the Cottage

(“When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their apparel stood with trumpets and, from the Levites, the sons of Asaph stood with cymbals to praise the Lord.” Ezra 3:10a)

I need a break from myself,
the asphalt has been rolled across my
soul for too long. It does not help to patch
the cracks.

I want a whole new foundation,
a life I do not need to defend,
a place to park my unkempt buggies
and chariots of expiration.

I know I’ve run over your inspiration,
I know it’s been hit and run and then
hit and miss.
I know now how pleasant uncertainty
can be
but I’ve lived on a diet of prepackaged
meals for too long.

So when I drive up in my new hippie van,
or walk in the fields barefoot again,
a few will say how wonderful to see someone
old and depressed as me
happily hunting butterflies after the mists
have moved east at afternoon.

Others will greet me, then hear me,
then wonder why I ever let the cinder blocks
crack the way they did. Why didn’t I read the
upkeep manuals,
why didn’t I play the music that resonates
with the prefab homes we lived in so long?

And me? I imagine a coffee date,
a friend who doesn’t hesitate to grab my neck
and won’t let go
no matter how much I’ve changed. I don’t even
mind
if it scares them some, just so long as they
wrap me in memory. My desires are out
of my control.

And that is what scares me. What angers some.
What leaves me on the edges, misunderstood and alone.

I’m still looking for the home where the foundation expands
every time there is another knock on the door from
wayward travelers who smell the chili in the dutch oven and
the smoke from the wood-burning stove. I’m still
waiting to join the house where hands are devoted to
healing the gaskets that are encrusted with grime.

I’m looking for the cottage made without hands,
and the family who was expecting me the whole time.