My Easy God is Gone*

The rising sun redeems me with the rolling waves warmed in its arms.
A dog barks and I weep to be alive, a cat studies me and my joy is boundless.
I lie on the grass and boy-like, search the sky.
The clouds do not turn to angles, the winds do not whisper of heaven or hell.
Perhaps I have no God--what does it matter?

I have beauty and joy and transcending loneliness,
I have the beginning of love--as beautiful as it is feeble--as free as it is human.
I have the mountains that whisper secrets held before men could speak, 

I have the ocean that belches life on the beach and caresses it in the sand, 

I have a friend who smiles when he sees me, who weeps when he hears my pain,
I have a future full of surprises, a present full of wonder.
I have no past--the steps have disappeared the wind has blown them away.

I stand in the Heavens and on Earth, 

I feel the breeze in my hair. 

I can drink to the North Star and shout on a bar stool,
I can feel the teeth of a hangover, the joy of laziness,
The flush of my own rudeness, the surge of my own ineptitude.

And [NOW] I can know my own gentleness as well, my wonder, my nobility.
I can sense the call of creation, I feel its swelling in my hands.
I can lust and love, eat and drink, sleep and rise,
But my easy God is gone--and in his stead...

 
The mystery of loneliness and love!


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* James Kavanaugh. Reprinted in Winell, Marlene. Leaving The Fold. Marlene Winell Ph. D., 2006. pg 179-180