Weighed Down Our Heavy Heads Are

 “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son-of-Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

  “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap.  

- Luke 21:25-28,34-35a

 

Weighed down our heavy heads are

yes from alcohol and bodily exhaustion

more from worry read on our pruned faces

from dread of the unnamable awful to come

from the rat trap caging our gnawing brains

so much so that we drowsy-eyed

let our lids slip down to a sliver

with a heaviness felt in the gut.

We miss the inbreaking of Otherness,
and perhaps a phenomenon slips by us
like a falling-star-flash in the daytime,
or a moment that comes when we could
but we do not, we lay low.

Still, now and then,
something arouses us
like the smell of baked bread.
We stand up as ancient evergreen trees,
and slow as an adagio we lift our heads
and catch in the retina's matrix
what comes next in this haunted universe.