Listening

A new poem

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Breakfast proper. The Globe and Mail.
I like my little, ordered life:
The crossword with my second cup
and all day long no sign of strife.

Such comfort, order have their place.
Yet deeper meaning calls the soul
to love and be loved come what may
and in the playhouse don a role. 

Yes don a costume proud or plain,
be a king or right hand man,
a better angel for the folk
at war between can not and can.

Or be conceiver 'gainst the sky
of office towers and public halls
or houses in the countryside
where children play near brooks and falls.

Or be a healer with one's hands
by easing stress, relieving pain
or solve the mysteries of disease, 
make broken bodies whole again.

For me, perhaps, those are but dreams, 
my call the work not made with hands
allowing soul to speak with soul
'cross many times, 'cross many lands.

Right work, right love may be enough
of meaning for my time alive,
yet things unseen, though surely felt,
can suddenly by stealth arrive.

So like a dream that's not forgot,
that on the surface seems absurd
yet somehow holds the heart in thrall
yet fails to yield itself in word. 

---