Cartographer
From sailboat to sea,
neatly drowning,
to harbor,
hanging off the dock
waiting for
something--I didn't know what.
And now to
dirt, to the land
to streets,
rust, to chipped concrete:
Here I've
been studying maps--all kinds
from different
Lewises, Clarks, especially Magellans.
I look for
the ones that smell of salt,
pages graced
with sea stains: of mystics--
Athanasius,
Bonhoeffer, Francis, Patrick--
who weathered
the sea while on land--for us
now stuck in
sand. I linger late nights,
wide
awake, to study maps with this at stake.
Awake late, I can't
shake the burn in my throat--
and that
craving. Now acquainted with splinters in my hands
broken ribs
now fusing again--still in love with salty smells
the careless
clatter of sea shells my soul remembers,
younger, when
my Father took me sailing.
In searching
for sea, I've been left to streets,
city, to
dusty water an inch deep--enough
for the antic
bathing birds, then why,
why not deep
enough for me?
My Father,
here, He takes care of me.
Here is the
land, the broken guard rails
missing
hubcaps, Christ plays in unlovely places.
I am
waking to smells of dried sea on ancient maps
at my desk
during morning dusk after
scanning
through the night. I scan in hope
to gain life
so graced with sight--eyes for this
sacramental,
stop-sign, holy-rhythm life.
My eyes still
long for deep sea;
I've
threatened to leave, to find You in the far away
across
oceans, fighting sea monsters bravely.
Years later
now, I've learned to live on land--
I study maps
in hopes to smell the sea again.
Even here, I
find you in the near--in the provincial
the seemingly
plain. In the simple joys of morning tea
reminding me
a bit of the sea--the waves as I sip.
You are in
both feasts and ordinary time
the rhythms of
birth and midlife,
the cadence of
sabbath and sweat
the song of
sunrise and city sunset.
In steps
together--even here on land--
I can find what
I wanted in childhood ecstasy
a blinding
glimpse of eternity—
as it was in
the beginning, is, and always shall be
in this
sacramental life.
Drawing
maps--I'll leave them in the streets
perchance
they care to join me.
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