The day slams shut
and I am alone with this
piercing audience of stars,
beyond the Earth-locked
carnival they say
is my fate,
and beyond even the
suffering of bliss and
seizures of understanding
and the splintery winds,
all purity and secrets
and remembering.

Don't let me off lightly,
God of all this,

I want every shard of
unbearable love, infinity
in my endless, frolicking Now—
Spare me nothing.

Above and now below
everything
is the sacred ground
of darkness
and the shores of no-time
and a sizzling,
untouchable
sea,

and at this altitude
I defy the gravity of
everything
I thought I knew.

Tell me more
about the kindness
we've forgotten,
about the billions
inside one soul and
the home we return to
every time we believe.

Can I find You in the few
stitches of moon lost
in the creases of Your centuries
or the cackling lights
raining from Your hands?

I listen.
I rest.
And You are Here.


Patricia Joan Jones