Shuttered Doors and Detours

When we return to poetry and myth and music

and put reason and intelligence in their proper place

which is to say a seat of limited honor and humbled praise

then we might be ready to listen to this Jesus strophe:

Knock, and the door will be opened.

Everyone who asks, receives.

Search, and you will find.

Persistence will be met with mercy.

But you stand there with your bloody rapping knuckles

and wonder what to do with shuttered doors and detours

because your tumor is growing apace with the calendar

your brimming pantry no longer satisfies anyone’s nourishment

So you stop tapping and asking and searching

persistence gives way to the power of pain

like Abraham you give up the bargaining just short of total clemency

you think you got all the universe had to offer and you’re done

But you’ll always wonder, won’t you, what absurd blessing would come

if you had knocked one more time with red bandages and waited

if you had kept questing beyond the rift of data with a run and a jump

and let holy imagination compose your future with verse, metaphor, and melody