WHITHER GRACE?  

WAITING

I am told there is a gift out there

They say, “grace”

Gift-like, free

Unique to me

Must I wait? 

Stop, look and listen

Dare I say, pray?

Or am I missing the point?

Can the extraordinary find me?

Sort through my baggage?

Learn the code

To hack its way past

My mental technology?

Gifts!

It would be nice to take a peek

Shake it a bit

Get a hint of what’s inside

It could be hard to open

Require assembly

Have difficult operating instructions

Something I would actually use?

I will try to be thankful

What if?

What if!?

A delivery has been tried

And I somehow scuttled it?

A challenge conveniently misinterpreted?

Or maybe it has been here all the time

Not carefully attended

Would it be something to grow with me?

Other people?

Truth be told

I have not exactly been seeking the extraordinary

Attending the elsewhere with some intensity

Where do my best efforts end?

And where does grace begin?

WONDERING

Would I know if it were working?

A tension may be necessary

Between the ordinary and the extra-

As in, no future

Without pruning the past

I have no horse to be knocked from

No angel has appeared

To structure my career

Should it prod dialogs with God

That would be new!

For many gifts what counts is the thought.

Might grace and I find a useful fit?

Discover what it means

To live gracefully?

Fantasizing

All my past missteps

And I’m still here

There but for the grace of God go I

Fantasizing again,

Maybe new eyes through which to see,

New energy

If it goes back to the resurrection

Or beyond

We’re all affected

But my guess, grace is personal

And hard to fathom in the general

SO . . .

What urged the many seekers preceding me?

What fueled their centuries of curiosity?

Their creativity?

Even these few words

Grace prodding questions about grace?

I may sort through my gifts again

And take a closer look

DRK

Feb. 18, 2019

REVELATIONS

The last book of the Christian Bible

“Revelation”

Is spelled with no “s”

But I offer nothing so singular here

Rather, a series of everyday revelations

Somewhat apocalyptic

And somewhat last-bookish

Age-old revelations about old age

 . . . Seemed new to me

Under Florida’s sun, circa February one

And, at some time, probably do to everyone

Apocalyptic?

A jab in the ribs, really

About creeping age

End-of-book-ish?

I do read the later chapters of my life

With more intent

But, experiencing age at Disneyworld?

That place for the young?

It and the airports leading to this “Rome”

Are huge

And now problematic  

Not for the young

Who traverse space easily

Striding daily, quick apace

Pain free

Fatigued?

Not obviously

Revelation one

We travel at different speeds

I, once a passer

Now the passee

Permanently

Revelation two

Physical pain is bad to prod the psyche

In my looking glass self * I now see differently

How people respond to me

The argument is over

Growing up has its downsides

And upsides

And this is why these events matter

The people who had been pulling me

Time and again

From my easy chair

Toward their future

Now took turns pushing me

My new “wheelchair legacy”

For the first time,

Viewing the world from the waist up

Revealed new interdependencies

Revelation three

Returns on investments getting real

Proud parents, look at what you’ve made

Blake’s new focus, pushing me

With his strong eight-year-old hockey legs

And thoughtfully parking me in the shade

DRK

2/9/19

PS:  to see where we went and what we did

Check out the amazing album of pictures

Created by Senja’s and Blake’s dad

*Charles Horton Cooley

Human Nature and the Social Order, 1902