Happy Union: A Path To Enlightenment

Happy Union, Texas

at the waterhole north end of grandfather's farm

where Kirby keeps his cattle.

It's evening and a hundred and ten degrees.

Barbas de Oro is whooshing up from El Rio Grande.

The chaparral throbs, and the cornfields rattle like pissed-off snakes.

I float in a pond, listen to killdeer, and scissor-tails.

Frogs plop in the water and ripple after ripple

passes through me.

I'm a buoy connected to Yahweh.

My head bobs in the swish\swoosh

body of water, and I muse –

if Jesus is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent;

if He is here at this moment,

has He counted every hair on my head;

if He knows me fully,

and I know Him,

having consumed His body

and drank His blood,

if He is here now,

does He ascend in golden plumes,

arms raised, palms turned outward,

pale face, blue-eyed, and blond;

or is He in the water

nude,

dark, shiny as a stone;

hair raven and in curls,

eyes black and catholic?

"Well Rabbi," I begin,

"It's like this --"

We talk late in the evening.

Just me and Jesus

-- neither here nor there --

in the heart of Texas,

in a slow spiral,

our heads bobbing

in the swish\swoosh

body of water.