I am going on a walk, down the drive

To the fork, take a right, nowhere to be,

Nowhere to go, I leave to feel alive.

Top of the hill, the thicket opens up.

I plunge into the ferns playing under

Tree’s crinolines like little boys peaking

Up skirts for forbidden knowledge needed

To prove their worth as boys. I moved beyond

Those values to find something different

Among the green leaves, an invitation

To meet God. Forbidden knowledge whose worth

None will ever know draws me in deeper

Until I find the stump of a chopped tree,

Moss covered, a throne in need of a prince,

I climb up its perch and look around me.

                                         I yield the art of God

To the Painter who knows how to preserve

His beauty.  I absorb it into veins

Until time reveals how my heart has changed.

Inside this moment, I cannot…