For you it
might be a magic light
appearing in the beckoning western sky
you follow it despite the peril and ridiculous cosmology
find what you were looking for in a backwater town
and rejoice in your bones that for a moment
you were breathless with holy hope
and then when a dream tells you to turn left at Jerusalem
you turn left and never look back or reappear or question
but still, you found it, you felt it, you lucky star-gazing fool
For me it was a slow mystery emerging from darkness
a sliver of silver working its way through
the hairline cracks of my life –
my father’s young death and the family shuffling
the unfulfilled longings of home and stable ground
my mother's short cobbled path and leaving me a 28-year-old orphan
the broken promises I can never unbreak
my sons’ beautiful and unbearable limited reality
the day I found our cat dead and bloated under the deck
the midlife falling into bottomless blackness
and the unforeseen and unknown father’s strong catch
and then, emerging like Venus through January clouds,
the Epiphany, the star, the shining that only comes in the night
appearing in the beckoning western sky
you follow it despite the peril and ridiculous cosmology
find what you were looking for in a backwater town
and rejoice in your bones that for a moment
you were breathless with holy hope
and then when a dream tells you to turn left at Jerusalem
you turn left and never look back or reappear or question
but still, you found it, you felt it, you lucky star-gazing fool
For me it was a slow mystery emerging from darkness
a sliver of silver working its way through
the hairline cracks of my life –
my father’s young death and the family shuffling
the unfulfilled longings of home and stable ground
my mother's short cobbled path and leaving me a 28-year-old orphan
the broken promises I can never unbreak
my sons’ beautiful and unbearable limited reality
the day I found our cat dead and bloated under the deck
the midlife falling into bottomless blackness
and the unforeseen and unknown father’s strong catch
and then, emerging like Venus through January clouds,
the Epiphany, the star, the shining that only comes in the night