To Your Call

This may be the final poem in the current collection I'm working on. Whether I will ever publish any of these collections I don't know, but I like to start a new one every now and then to keep the momentum going. If I could write these poems in notebooks, I might consider cracking open a fresh one right about now. I think this poem speaks of many true things about being human.

To Your Call

To Your Call, O my Christ, I will come,

Though not, for now at least,

Like a dutiful dog to heel,

Nor even—dare I say it?—

Like a lost sheep seeking shelter,

Though the wolf runs close behind

And Your voice is the only one I trust

To bring me where I need to be.

No, I will come like a child,

Chilled to the bone and burned by the wind

In the deepening dusk of a winter day,

Who hears the call to food and fire

But still believes the snow to be a wondrous thing,

A fellow-conspirator in fancy and fun,

Though the sun has long-since gone its steeply-slanting way

To where it will rest beneath a blanket of cold stars.

Yes, I will come like that,

Finger-numbed, nose-nipped, foot-frozen and hungry,

And I will sit beside Your fire,

Slowly thawing, painfully coming back to life,

Reluctantly leaving the snow to itself,

While I remember the meaning of warmth and of wonder,

For the stars are in the fire too,

And the hearth is filled with the ancient and eternal fragrance

Of the sacred incense of invitation.