TALKING TO GOD

 Dear friends or strangers who might read this,

This past year has been a very challenging one for me, in terms of changes and losses that are like small earthquakes.  It was like I woke up one day and the whole world had changed and I had to learn a new way of being, and find out who I am in a whole different context.  This is one poem along the way.


 Talking to God

God you are in the sandstone roses
scattered along back roads in Oklahoma.
You are the old woman with swollen ankles
and cut-out shoes, who told me,
"Spend your life being alive.  Do things!
Take chances.  Don't spend your life eating,
sleeping, working and watching TV)."
(I was 17.  I heard her.)
I have done things God, so many things.
I"m tired.
Hold me in your love.

God you are the boot that kicked me,
that I would know violence, hate, anger,
and work against them in myself and others.
God you are my infinite loneliness,
that I might always exalt the beauty and
mystery of the stars.
God you are my fear,
pushing me toward perfect love*.
God I feel old and broken now, still saying,
"Thank you for this bed, these pillows and blankets.
Thank you for this roof over my head."

                                                               -arupa

*"Perfect love casteth out fear."  (New Testament)