The Where & The When

Do you know
the stairs that I have been willing to descend
for the sake of love’s fulfillment?
Only to find in the hidden folds of my willingness
that I had actually ascended to heights foreign even
to my imagination,
and I discovered myself in the clouds.
The places the world calls depths
were really mountain tops
and I who thought I was falling was breathless in the climbing;
weighted down with the roles I was playing
that at the top transformed to winged things.
I have kissed unholy places you know, and pierced the forbidden
with the spear of my folly
with a tongue of fire I have licked clean the tears of indecision,
and simply lept.
I have pried open the shunned and the damned
and found they contained the bones of the Holy Grail of love;
entering the profane and exiting through the sacred.
I experienced the weightless wonder
of flight without the shackles of fear.
Do you have any idea the things I have done
or the gowns I have worn?
The roles I have played, the costumes I have donned
to prance across life's stage in time to the beat,
from a drum that I alone was listening to,
all the while peeling back the layers like petals on a rose,
revealing the beauty of each one individually in the scent.
Rejecting nothing, I followed with a child’s abandon .
Fiercely I clung to the fingers of faith, and found
There is no door we enter through in which God is not.
I was not afraid to go where most would fear to venture
Because I know He hides in the mystery at the center of His calling.
He disguises Himself in what the world judges
He dresses up as paupers and kings, hides in the secrets of
angels and dervishes, and always goes to places man misunderstands
like the Pied Piper He sings inviting us to follow in the dance.
He gives to the daring a special touch of grace,
a twinkle in His eye, a smile upon His face, a snap of His great fingers,
a skipping through the race.
Do you have any idea the places I have been?
The journey, or the where and the when?