A Poem in the Meteoran Rocks
With Thanks to Paul and Philippians 2
These rocks are knobby knees,
Their gratitude is millions of years in the making.
On the lush Greek plain they bend
toward heaven
With solemn exuberance; and with them
Every wildflower, every singing bird,
Every stone set sweet, a pathway for
pilgrims.
Somewhere this very night, after dark,
The prodigal washes the feet of another
prodigal
Come home again from Guantanamo
Or a kidnapper’s clutch or a terrible sadness.
She takes these forgotten feet into her
hands
And skin knows skin, touches grace:
This human form, obedient to love,
humbled God.
In the morning, they will share a pot
of coffee,
The two of them bound by a covenant
called faith.
She will lead him beside a singing
stream,
To green lush pastures he remembers
now;
They will explore together the great
stones,
Obelisks, earth, millions of years in
the making.
All of this is home, for him again, as
for her always.
And her knees and his knees, all those
knees
Will bend, every tongue tenderly
confessing
That love turns night to day, age to
age;
That love welcomes home the prodigal
And puts on coffee in the morning;
That love is the name that bends our
knobby knees.
