It’s All So Complex

It’s All So Complex

(“The Lord has heard my plea; the Lord will receive my prayer.” Psalm 6:10)

She thinks you are indifferent and have sent no one to help.
She feels forgotten, she sees nothing on the horizon. She hopes
you govern in love
but learned little but coercion.
Hear her please. Hear her pleas. Receive her cry, respond to
her anguish, the residue of trauma.

It's all so complex. It’s jigsaw puzzles in four dimensions.
It’s air that feels too heavy to breathe. It’s earth that is blown dusty
by the northwest wind. It is every resume sent with
new hopes kindled. It is every rejection when you swore you
were the most qualified. It is your children feeling your anxiety
in their bones, but they keep on playing because it all seems
more mysterious than they can imagine.

Show her just for a moment that she is chosen. Let her
snatch the words from the air that speak of sparks of
divinity. Let her journey into the warmth that is
fashioned my mercy. Let her walk today unhindered
by loneliness and loss.

I know you haven’t rejected her. I know you have remembered her.
I know she is one of your own. I know she hasn’t chosen this land
of the unknown. I would remain silent if I thought that would
amplify your voice to her. I would speak only softly with warm
rain words like late summer afternoons. I know she belongs to you,
I know she’s crossed more bridges than she can count.

I know the day is coming when the horizon lifts like a curtain
and the mystery will no longer be inky night. I know the mystery,
the secret of the inner life, will one day be a place of peaceful reflection.
I know you are affected by her plight and may have sent help already.
I know the fear of the silence too. I know the dread of days when
there is no voice to muscle the heavy lifting. I know the loneliness
of silent friendships.

But I am learning the comfort of solitude between the flighty words
of new friends who happily buy me a beer.