It took a long time,

But I found my quiet again.

I wrap it around me and wait for God alone.

He is my fastness, quick keep, faith’s fort,

My rest and release.

How many of my battered days

Slipped soundlessly to nothing?

How long was I a man of strings

Pushing through a hedge without end?

What did I do to deserve the ire

Of so many people I hardly know?

If I fall, will they rise?

Or will they just be rid of me

And free to swallow down

The loves I ceded and deck

Their brows like crowns

With the things I lost?

They open their mouths to smile

But only trouble tumbles out.

Stillness isn’t easy,

But it is all I have left.

So I will wait here

In silence

For God alone.

In the morning I come downstairs

While the house sleeps.

I make the coffee in the dark.

I pray and fret and watch

From the bay window as

God’s ghost moon tumbles through

What’s left  of the sky.

I ravel myself back. I breathe.

I watch the martins circle in the soft dawn.

I learn the first lesson again:

God is a refuge; rest in him.

My fears run in a small circle.

I weigh them and watch them rise

Like the smoke of my morning’s altar.

I have heard you, God,

Once or twice, but clear and true

And I am still ringing with it.

You seek the lost.

You guard the weak.

You bring everyone the harvest

Of their frantic days.