The Trackless Path

The sun sets upon the sacred valley.

And the clouds light up with color

As the cool rolls in off fields of green.

The smell of earth. The sound of bees.

The mountains looking down 

In loving, purple, rocky grey.

And I alone with the silence,

No outlet, but to write 

Here on this page,

No pallet, No colors, No music.

Just the words, the gratitude, that rolls 

Through my brain and down my slippery fingers 

Onto the emptiness of the barren page.

Sacred little cumulous clouds 

And almost stormclouds 

Grace the holy valley.

And I am lost in the fields.

The tractors drive by.

And the driver’s wave.

But nobody cares

That I live here.

I do not move

Except

When absolutely necessary.

And the longer I rest here in silence

The more I am healed.

The more I’m healed.

I close my eyes and see waving fields

Of the most golden grain I’ve ever seen,

As if the sunlight is caught up and inbetween

The stalks of grain, and as if it glows itself. 

And through the field runs a telephone line,

Post, post post. And I am lost in the bright yellow.

I came upon a Blue Heron today.

It landed in an irrigation ditch

And hid behind a clump of grass.

I slowly moved up on it and it flew away,

But not far. A hundred paces down the ditch.

Incredible, a Blue Heron in the irrigation ditch,

And he’s staring back at me as if to say,

“Hello, old friend.” And I could sware

That I remember him from long ago,

Long before our names were written down,

When the morning colors of creation shone

Upon the hearts of all created things.

“Hello, old friend,” I say.

“So good to know you once again,

So grateful for the visit,

So beautiful the friendship long forgotten,

And how precious the unexpected, chance, reunion.”

It is surprising to me that wherever you go, you can hear birds.

And they live their lives without a grocery store.

They are wild, and yet, they are among us.

And yet we are a world away

When it comes to things like faith.

Still, they condescend to grace us with the song 

Of simple trust. Always. Always. It chirps.

It’s there in almost every outside moment

And passes through every cracked 

And open window,

A constant reminder 

That no one need fret unseen tomorrows.

And yet, how infrequently we listen!

Why is Christ so compelling?

Because nobody is keeping the law.

We appeal to the law all the time 

When things go really bad.

We insist that THOSE people are wrong

And that we need to get back to moral absolutes.

But that’s not what we really mean

Or what we really want.

And when we look close enough, 

We discover that our choices beguile us.

We, each of us, have swallowed the culture’s poison.

We all are dead or dying by degrees

Unless we’re not. 

And there is the very case for Christ - 

In the fact that some of those 

Who do no measure up

Are actually alive,

Alive to His very voice

That whispers out of darkness unto life.

And you know them when you meet them.

They are those who have found a King Unseen.

They are those who wait and listen and obey

To spite their imperfection.

Be still and wait upon the unheard voice to speak.

The world is running to the banner of MORE

While the children of Silence 

Wait peacefully listening

Around the standard

Of ENOUGH.

Perhaps forgiveness is the greatest thing.

Value what you have.

What does that mean? 

I don’t know. But I see that there are 

Two spirits that rise up in me.

One thinks that something’s lacking

And that we must go out and find it.

The other, and it is by far the quietest,

Says that we have enough.

The first would spend our means

On nets to catch the two birds in the bush

While the last would forsake such dreams

For the one we already have.

Say OK to the still small voice.

And say no to the loud voices and the rush.