Desultory search

Desultory search                                                                                        
 
I’ve discovered the pilgrim’s path
offers a more-than-adequate opportunity
 
for running away from God.  Sufficient license
and elbow room out on that open road.
 
The pilgrim might settle unobtrusively
into a rhythm which affords some semblance
 
of diligence, some identity, some tattered ideal
of love and devotion in which to wrap oneself
 
but it rarely includes bowing down
in that oft-neglected, deeply-buried heart-shrine
 
with no room for anyone else but the Beloved –
a tomb where the pilgrim comes to a dead halt,
 
forsaking the hypocrisy and faux freedom
of his lifelong, rambling, desultory search.
 
O child of God, how studiously you avoid that tomb,
that cloister, that intimacy that would lead you to God.