Note: Some poetry from 2021-2022 are unlisted in the Index of Titles.

Saturday, March 13, 2021

Your big toe

Your big toe
 
The entire village awoke to find
 the rabbit hunter felling trees with an axe.
 
‘What are you doing?’ everyone asked.
‘Building a new snare,’ he said.  ‘My old one is crushed.’
 
‘A snare larger than a house?’ they questioned.
‘The old snare,’ he replied, ‘was meant for rabbits,
 
but an elephant showed up!’  O Beloved,
long ago, when I thought I had a choice,
 
I pondered becoming Your lover.  You looked small
enough to throw my arms around.
 
Now I can’t cast the net of my imagination
far enough to wrap around Your big toe.
 
O child of God, amid the Beloved’s immensity and chaos,
quickly abandon all strategies and concepts.


                                   (from A Jewel in the Dust, 2011)

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