Procession*

Real life sits

on a shelf ledge

in the distance between

hello and goodbye,

drawing water

from the deep well

of surprise connections

that happen unplanned.

Each time I think

the future looks broken,

I feel their warmth

and realize nothing needs

to right itself or become

like what I imagined.

The light falls down

and they’re still there

holding my hand, 

bright and enough.

*A note to my friends. I’ve been away from this poetry page for a while. Part of this has been due to how absorbed (obsessed?) I become when I'm working on a writing project. And I am in the thick of working on another book of poetry/prose that feels important to my soul.

But the main reason I’ve been away has had to do with a long discernment I’ve been walking through about the next steps in my working life. After almost 25 years of serving in our local homeless shelter ministry, I come to believe that I am now being called to serve full time in my beloved parish church. This feels less like a new adventure and more like a joyful widening of the one I've been on for quite some time. But the difficult part of any change is losing daily proximity to friendships that have ripened over many years. I don’t know how to be present to those emotions other than the way I normally do, which is through poetry. That’s what this poem gives voice to. I ask for your prayers and good thoughts around this transition.

Love and peace, 

Tim