Heartbeat

I endure under the baking of Your Sun

Not patiently – no saint I – but wait

And watch the relentless heat break the stillness.

How can nothingness be so much?

I am overwhelmed by the endless sand and sky.

They stretch and cover and consume my past,

Breaking it down under the frailty of all such

In the presence of the expanse of You.

For all I see is less than one grain of sand in You

And I am less than that in the midst of my own vision’s circle.

I turn and shrink –

I am small and will and must grow smaller.

And You? Do You ever end?

If You have no end, can You have a hand to hold us?

That slow invasion, like the tide,

That washes at us must be illusion.

We are in You; immersed, baptized,

Submerged and sustained like a child in the womb.

Imbued with the rhythm of Your Heart,

Indwelling to somehow be indwelt.

Here I float, embryonic, in the great ocean of You

And find no end to You.

Were I among the stars, could I see Your end

Beyond the crashing of creation rushing out?

No, it rushes to meet You!

Runs after Your expression

And laughs to try to reach

The unstopped edge of You.

She, the laughing sprinter, and we live here

In the womb that received Your Word.

I, who kicked free of You, I thought,

And my like-minded brothers churn together.

Hard-sustained illusions that we move freely and apart

Depend upon the noise of ourselves

To drown out creation’s joy (our twin annoys)

And, more so, the steady thump

By which she times her stride;

Too rich evidence of impoverished need

This noise from Your Heart.

“It is the noise of waves and tides,”

We claim one to another,

But the birthing can’t be ignored.

The expulsion from our ocean womb

Laid us small on the sands of time,

Exposed to the prince of the air,

And wailing for the lost Heartbeat.

Too sane to refute experience, I still and bend.

I become small and wait, impatiently,

Under the baking of Your Sun

And hear under the heat’s hum

The rhythm of Your Heart.

©2012 Jessica R. Venable