Vista Del Corazón
in the small rundown
church in our rural town
our young priest overwhelmed
by the calamities rising
like a murder of crows
from the countryside
paraphrased in last sunday's
sermon words translated
long ago of a poet
who is now dead
and mostly forgotten
at the wooden pulpit
our cleric swore
with such passion
to those of us who come
for no apparent reason
each week to the
holy sacrament
-when oh when
will god learn
to speak a language
understood by headstrong
women and men
*
for so many seasons
i have wanted to climb
the mountain that throws
at dusk a long blue shadow
over my pastures and
the rundown dwelling
that for generations
has served with sacrifice
as my family house
the disassembled parts of farm
implements and cars scattered
like shards of faith in rusting
pieces about the long front yard
the faint smell of gasoline
clinging to metal like traces
of incense floating from
the debris of a crumbling temple
*
resolved i was then
for an interval
to endeavor at the hard
labor of ascending
for i had grown bored
of harvesting and haying
of raising beef for slaughtering
of meaningless chores
of the tall trees i had tended
when they were saplings
that no longer wanted
for my attention i had landed
impatient with meddlesome
politicians who would stop by
to shake my hand and
ask about my vote
on matters which i
could feign no interest
resentful of the unpaved
road where young
men alone and yearning
would drive their pickup
trucks too fast in hot
summers raising gray
clouds of clinging dust
*
so when the days grew short
i set about to fulfill perhaps
a dream of checking out what lay
on the far side of the summit
committing in a way unfit
for my advanced age
to arduous hours of rising
on a quest that seemed to drag
for weeks that stretched
to years that spanned lost
decades until near exhaustion
i scuttled across the
final piece of granite
and reached at sunset
the windswept top
of the mountain
*
and what was there
hidden beyond the
eroded peak to behold
but this extending valley
of such magnificence
and unassuming peace
shaped over millennia by
a meandering river dividing
horizon from horizon
glistening glowing
in a muted transcendence
of day-ending colors
i stood there silent for a spell
until i was struck by how
even at an unsafe brisk pace
it would be late into the night
before i made it back down
*
then turning upon my way
to depart the vista
to my awe i witnessed
how the beauty hidden
behind the mountain
was no greater than the dark
and other-worldly grace
that from afar embraced
the place from whence
i had just come
*
how can it be
we lose the will
the ability to see what is
when we are enmeshed
in the tangle of living
i vowed as i descended
to write a note to the
liberal apostle of christ
who in his solitary station
shepherded our parish
to post the note
on the church door
for my neighbors
to ponder then
gossip over
how i had an inkling
from a point of view
nearer to heaven
into the language
with which god speaks
to those who stop listening
for divine words and instead
pay heed to the divine silence
where all is written
*
but like so many
good intentions
that fill a soul
for a solitary moment
invigorated by hope
once safely home
i demurred
declined to scribe
the missive
i was after all
no evangelist no
st paul on a mission
thinking again
with recovered clarity
how no one
not even a progressive priest
with his own troubles
of discernment
would be much interested
in what i had to say
about revelations from
an unproductive day