(with thanks to Martina Nicholson for helping me hear it.)

grand canyon

The worst part of me says:
I will never be happy lining the pocket of God
unless I am Her only coin.

The best part of me knows:
I am dust on the tabernacle, and that is enough.

I am a drop of rain that fell a million years ago.

I am yesterday’s sunshine.

I am a middle-aged man who hears God whispering on his shoulder
who knows not what God is
but knows well what God is not.

God is not an old man with a white beard and a whip.

or if God is

then God is also a brown baby with a binky

and a girl clutching a candle

and a young man with a hammer

and a woman screaming as a child enters the world
crying tears that rain the promise of God

and God is a tree fallen by lightning

and God is a sapling in loam

and God is a white man fifty-nine minutes into his fifty-first birthday
typing

and God is a person giving that man his first birthday present
by reading these lines.

God is not ego.

Saturday night I spoke at a twelve-step meeting and many people laughed.
Many told me how much my story moved them.
Many looked me in the eyes and we saw each other
as children crying for the help that did not come.

It went to my head.
It felt like warm butter in my heart.

A voice has been whispering to me
“I have much to say
and yours is a mouth I am choosing.”

I know others answer such commands
and God
helps them

but I am afraid
I am unworthy
and I am afraid
it will go to my head
and I am afraid
the voice will go quiet.

I don’t want to be alone again.
I like to listen to that voice
all by myself
just the two of us.

I want to sit under a stone under a tree under a cloud
and listen to those maple sweetened words
as they flow like a lively brook through my heart.

“SPEAK!!!”
Is sometimes all I hear as I clutch my knees and feel so much happiness at last.
“SPEAK!!!”

I don’t want to be conceited, or ignored, or to start running a race again.
I have so much to say.
I believe I have much to give.
I am filled with tears and with smiles and with bloodshed and hugs.

It is my fifty-first birthday and my hair is becoming white.
Who am I to speak up?
And where would I find a soapbox?

I want to be God’s coin.
The most selfish part of me wants to shine alone in a dark, empty pocket.
The best part of me wants to jingle like one of seven billion gold dollars in a bursting sac.

When I lived for ego it all looked so simple.
Living for heart has brought me to this precipice
where I must jump and drop like a suicide victim,
spread my arms on the way down,
and hope God becomes my wings
so I can carry my message across the gorge.

Happy Birthday to me
and you
and God
whatever She is.