Stir the Waters Again

 Stir the Waters Again

(“He listened to Paul speaking. And Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well...” Acts 14:9)

There is a stirring that wakens the heart from
daydreams and midnight specters. Forged in love and
distilled in peace it
dares with hope to see
summer fruit on a fruitless tree.

We make up animals, clouds in the sky;
we hear new melodies, waves on the shore;
we dance on the gravel, we run on the topsoil,
we see a feast, bread and wine.

We set the table in anticipation of the
next divine guest who,
venturing from the tent city,
finds our door, no longer a door,
but an entryway to laughter seldom heard among

The serious scholars of tradition,
the preachers of discontent who believe their words
are the lodestar to god.

Stir the waters again, God.
We are not well.
Some limp, but most disguise their pain behind
compromises and grins. Simply pretending
to find
sanity in the repeated lines meant to
monitor their mistakes and keep them crawling.

Stir the waters again, God.
Let us go sailing where the tides are moved by angels,
and the tears we have hidden are dried
by secret handkerchiefs that were never quite our color.
But dry them anyway.
Stir us again.