Kindling

I. First Touch
The first touch brings astonishment, then delight:
Water, kitten belly, hydrangea blossom, warm mud.
New ears learn to decipher footsteps and music.
While watching a fuzzy caterpillar, small hearts lean towards God.

II. Pages
On the pages of the morning paper,
People rebuild shattered schools and restore lifeless lakes,
Knit reconciliation out of promise and pain,
And sing to the deathly ill and the newly born.
Constitutions are still being written,
And slaves freed, and truces forged.
We finish our breakfasts and roll up our own sleeves.

III. Chosen People
As children we are enchanted by the apple, the ark, the whale,
The boy with the slingshot, the baby in the barn.
Later we grapple with forgiveness, resurrection and compassion.
Chosen people are everywhere now — in the market, under the bridge.
The next chapters are ours to imagine.

IV. So Much Radiance
Once we set forth in the dark empty hours of the night,
In search of a Presence wondrous and unseen,
Guided only by a voice still and small.
Our outstretched hands soon encountered
The brass and grain of Cross and Menorah,
And our fingers traced their contours with reverence and joy.
Only now, as the rising sun illuminates
Wheel and Lotus, Yin and Yang, Star and Crescent, Eagle and Drum,
We begin to behold the Limitless:
So much Radiance within our reach — even more beyond.

V. Strong Braid
Aloft in the heady air of faith,
Our senses heightened by incense and ether,
We may from time to time become ecstatic paper kites.
We dive and keel and rocket,
Riding each wayward gust with abandon,
Recklessly aspiring to Auroral heights —
Yet knowing all the while that we are safe,
Tethered to the ground by a strong braid, a steady hand,
And a mind that appraises the wind.

VI. Where Belief Begins
It comes down to this, in the end.
And in the beginning and middle as well:
Earth, generous and visceral,
Manifested in mountains and hidden within clouds,
Familiar to rhizomes and young knees.
Air and Water, faithful channels of change,
Whose currents and cycles nudge germination
All the way through to rot and back again.
What’s more, there’s Fire, dazzling and improbable,
Not only in the cores of planets and stars
But also in the hollow where belief begins.

Epilogue: The Chalice of Our Hearts
Our search for kindling takes us far beyond our selves —
There we gather Truth and Mystery.
We return in joy to tend the chalice of our hearts.

Elizabeth Alexander
© 2015 by Elizabeth Alexander