June 20

Why the silence, O Lord?

Yet, in it

I am uncovering what I want to hear,

meeting my own lies face-to-face,

learning how I fill gaps with noise

and excuses,

discovering idols I construct in my sleep,

watching where I say, “No,

I am unwilling.”

For the silence exposes.

When I was young,

I crossed my heart, hoped to die,

and swore,

“I will follow you anywhere,”

imagining a firing squad or a den of lions.

Not silence.

And yet,

you who allowed formlessness and void

to steep for epochs perhaps

before speaking, “Let there be,”

prepares me.

Who, then, am I

to rush eternal gestation?

Who am I to command

the fingers of the Divine to knit me

more quickly in the soft, black, pink

of the soul’s womb?

Grow me then while I float,

kicking my heels,

in the muffled inner sanctum

of a God I cannot see.

Star Formulation in Tadpole Nebula, NASA