You send up a flare everywhere you go,
walking under the cathedral’s arch,
in the anonymous grocery store line,
at work on an insufferable Tuesday.
Look at me, look at me, look at me.
With God’s love so close, it would seem unnecessary,
this somber cry for recognition, though somehow
I doubt God is put off,
rather, more than gratified that in the flesh of things,
in the very skin of your history,
you find the grace to connect,
to bridge the silent passages from one day to the next with a body,
someone whose voice you can hear, and not be thought crazy,
as the saints were thought crazy in their age.
The fire that burns beneath all fires
is for a rare and courageous breed,
like the ecstatic early Christians
whose love of God was so intense,
they gladly flung themselves into the pit.
Or poets of a certain stripe,
dancing around their own
kind of fire, offering fervent verse
whose humble prayer may transform into
a more luminous light,
one that will cause a catch in the Lord’s throat,
should He be so moved.
I digress. We speak here of the flesh,
the unrelenting ache, the touch of hands,
the body’s own potent salve.
You send up a flare everywhere you go,
in search of a sacred gift,
one the angels can never know.
