Query the Hawk to Prove the Air (A Parental Ode)

I

Ask a fish to prove the sea,
query the hawk to prove the air,
conscript the core to prove the bark,
the crown to prove the cloud?

Tell the thrush to stop its trill?
like telling the ring to be the bell.

It is not for me to prove a God, instead to undergo,
the God within the evening rain, and of,
the morning glow.

And what worth would there be,
if I talked of God, and had
no rain or light in me?

II

Some Sunday’s I attend, and all I hear are answers,
when in truth, undergoing God,
brings a columbine of open questions—
leading to yet more sunflowers.

Luckily, there have been people in my life,
beginning with my own parents,
who didn’t so much speak of Christ,
but unconsciously lived
as though they were his clarion hosts.

All through my egoist adolescence, which extended
well into my forties, I watched them weave
their self-giving selves into the hearts of others,
felt their radiant love, even from far cities,
caught an early thought: this is how Christ comes
risen into the world—and underwent
the slow dissolve of my own resistance,
through the resurrection of my parents, in me.

III

This gave me a certain advantage,
a kind of intuition for the genuine.

When, Sunday upon Sunday, I was subjected
to sermonic answers by (in this case) Baptist pillars,
I’d line them all up (answers and pillars),
beside the quiet presence of my parents,
whose only faith-polemic was their daily manner.

There would have been a look of incomprehension,
and a shy turn of head, if one day I said, “Mom,
you’re a mystic.” And quick creases of a blue-eyed laugh,
when I added, “And Dad, you are a gentle prophet.”
But I know I’m not much off the mark.

For like the hawk, riding on the prairie air,
circling without moving a wing,
and like the willow, rooted without argument,
beside a surging river, they lived
attentively within the divine logos,
its anchoring serenity and suffering love.