Senses

i.

There are ways and ways of seeing.

What you choose determines

what you know.

Like a woman sitting, talking

to a Man in the heat of the day.

Some see an enemy,

some a threat,

some a harlot.

The woman herself,

a nobody.

But she is a chalice,

a spark.

She is seen.

 

ii.

What is it like

to be the ears of God,

receiving all the wailing

laughing sobbing jeering singing caterwauling

of all the world upward yearning,

and yet to bear the silence

of a people meant for praise?

What does He know of the muteness

of our noise and the stillness

that is listening?

iii.

From the beginning

we contented ourselves with the taste

of our own desires, which became

insatiable.

We slobber and crave, smack and rave,

incessantly taking the offered fruit.

Empty

we must arrive at His table.

Famished

we will find His feast.

 

iv.

Two aromas:

Life,

Death.

All others are shadows

of these.

 

v.

We would never have believed

if You had not come like that,

pushing Your way in through pain and blood and flesh,

a child we held, a man we touched,

who touched us,

who opened eyes and ears, who fed us,

who brought the smell of heaven.

You grasped our hands to pull us from the waves,

You bathed our feet,

You held our children on your lap,

You unbound the cords of death.

You grasped the iron of our hatred,

allowed it to open You wide.

You took in all

the blows we could give,

carried them to the grave.

You came back.

You offered Your hands.

You let our touch bind You

and You bound us to Yourself.

 

You are the head

by which we see and hear,

taste and smell.

You are the hands held out.

One day You will be the glory

that fills our senses,

and all our glory

will be Yours.