While the Children Learn

While the Children Learn

(“Lord, you have made so many things! How wise you were when you made all of them! The earth is full of your creatures.” Psalm 104:24)

I’m not sure how to go about this.
I see my chihuahua lapping up the Autumn sun.
She chases the squirrels away, she patrols the yard
against the next door Husky a hundred times larger than she.
I am lonely still, missing my hearts who have left this world.
I wish the blue jays knew me by name,
the hummingbirds also, when they buzzing sounds like
mosquitos.

Saint Francis knew the bluebirds’ songs. He wrote their
notes upon his heart. I wish I could hear just a few more words
from the departed I’ve loved, from the disheartened who
filled the earth with more love than
most of us are worth.

I’ve seen geckos sunning in Mexican terraces,
moose standing by a Canadian road. I’ve heard
loons echoing the late afternoon and
seen the young Northern pike caught on the end of
an icy hook. I’ve heard the coyotes calling from the
buttes across the frozen lake,
I’ve heard the ice crack as the sun went down.
I’ve tasted fish fried fresh from the augured ice
with crackers and Vienna sausages to tide us over.

But today I heard from a close friend, how myriads of missiles
attacked his homeland. I ached that there are borders that
God has not drawn. I weep that butterflies know more than
we do.

Mid-Autumn is when the grasshoppers leap from
wheat sheaves to ditches by the side of the road.

October is when hostages were taken,
buildings were demolished,
politicians polished their speeches to take
advantage
of ancient hatreds that have nothing to do with
the ways of God in the world.

When our borders are reasons for death,
when our faith is motivation to unleash onslaughts
beneath the structures of sanity,
then perhaps we need to listen again. Perhaps
we need to sit cross-legged again on the
sand of the desert
and let our children play. Let our children
play. We have paid too much to be adults
when we bark like wild dogs at every unfamiliar
sound. Let the moon shine while the children learn
the names of cousins they never knew.