November Afternoon

        November 30th In The Afternoon     11/30/08   

The path is sodden with the spice of fallen leaves
Whose incense, like the cloud of Presence, isolates me in the aromas
Of autumn’s cool climb to the nursery of winter’s solstice.
No long view, but just the cloudy mist
And one foot falling in front of the other

Holy ones clambered up mountains in such mist
And breathed with God

I am not climbing, only walking a well-worn path
But speaking, aye, with the invisible one
Who breathes about me
All the air I breathe
Who stirs the trees
With sighs too deep for words,

While I walk and breathe
And sort details
Little details

And inside me; the cloud of presence
Around the invisible spirit, stirring sighs.
And cool mist of cottonwood leaves
Hydrates my lungs, as they mulch the earth
Sodden on the path beneath my feet
Incense that revives my breathing.

Long before the Mountain
Moses stood before a burning bush
Enflamed, but not consumed.
Take off your shoes, it is holy.
So Moses moved toward God
But it was many years to the Mountain,
And many details.  Many details.

So it is with every vulnerability;
All trust, through many years.

Oh, that all walking were barefoot
And every ground holy, as if one moved only toward God
Against that could you protect yourself?
It is a longing. 

(I said, Ravish me.  Impregnate me.  Cover me.  Protect me...
Fill me with your presence and
Never leave)

Yes, Beloved, all this and more..
Glory and sorrow; communion
And catching up into mist

Much I trust in the fog
Like the cloud of Presence around the Invisible
Even in the forgetfulness of the mist
Which is softly breathing a sleeping love.
Breathe, my Love....

No details, Dear One.
They dissolve out in the white mist
And we are alone here, a reality, no object

Then it’s an unbraided sigh of relief, a deep breath and who can say
Am I naked barefoot?  Is the mist outside?  Am I inside the lungs of God?
Or even am I burning in an everlasting fire
Enflamed but not consumed

And if you see, what of that --
If I have God to breathe with me?