You’d like to find a way to capture that first bit of clarity that arrives
as rouge light rising rosily behind the rigging of pines
while reading the Torah with a cup of Sumatra
and coming across the word Ethiopia,
ancient and mysterious as romance.

How easily the imagination leaps up and the mind snaps to attention.
How clear the distant lark, like a church bell calling you to worship.
How it intensifies into a deep longing that beckons you to bottle it —
    
     at which point it blows away like catkin fluff
and you find yourself in the ordinary streets,
far from prime real estate,
beyond the iconic, the lofty, the luminous,
among the ignoble, anonymous shoppers at Thrifty’s
gathering your dropped bags of groceries
then driving away with your coffee cup on the roof,
slamming the back door at the loss of it,
which is really about the plumber that didn’t show up,
or the unknown credit card charge,
or a break-up, a betrayal,
or the dark spot on your back you hesitate to have checked.

We are just people.
People with morning epiphanies,
hardscrabble afternoons,
evenings with wine — sometimes vinegar.

People who dream,
wonder the mystery,
but don’t kid themselves.
Who know we may not make it.
Who know we live in a moderately apocalyptic civilization
but still get up and water the tomatoes on the balcony.
Who know enough not to vote for a narcissist,
but in a ruinous result, don’t shrink
to plant oak trees, build schools and bird houses.
Who are not driven or tied to outcomes,
but by cries of children, at any border.
Who know that true faith has no objects, only acts
of treason against hate, war and indifference.