Nostalgia

Nostalgia

At twelve I knew
God as a my bedroom ceiling,
the undulating pattern of glue
and sheetrock, the pressed boards
with cold nails living in holes. I knew
God as the final verse of a hymn, when the song
thrust itself out from my throat,
the variance, the pitch, the note.

He stood on the roof, listening to the speaker
at the pulpit praise him, to the mother of four
digging in her bag for cheerios, He smiled. To me,
while His knuckles turned white, gripping the steeple,
He shuddered, shaking off the dust of Sodom, the mist
of Eden, the endurance. He shuddered
while listening to me sing the last note of the hymn
and He prayed, to what, to who; He prayed
as I lay prone in my bed, the ceiling fresh with shunted light.

He prayed as I prayed. As such, I understand why He
was busy when I asked for help. Being twelve I asked
for help a lot.

I knew God then as a visitor, one who lurked
at the window, His voice a crick in the sounds of the night,
the mourning dove, the settling house—uncomfortable
in its foundation—He talked as if wounded, that breezy
voice that interrupted my prayer. The wonder of God
is the moonlight crossing over a boy in supplication. The word
on both our lips just catatonic gibberish, a screech, a bottle housing
a message that will dip and sway with the water, then sink
to a place where it can rest and go unanswered, but known.