In a gladed wood dappled with light—

a summer of my youth,

in a moment of rare solitude

I sat upon a stone

and asked for a gift large as Hope.

 

Shyly, as one would address a hidden king

I folded my hands in meek humility,

gazed skyward, and in my smallest voice

I dared to speak.

“Please,” I begged, “If it is allowed,

Let me have a vision.”

And closed my mouth to wait.

 

The breeze stirred and I looked for rustling wings.

The light glittered on new leaves—

I sought halos.

Nearby a bird twittered.

An insect hummed, then another

but no heavenly choir burst into “Gloria in excelsis!”

 

I listened intently.  

I peered  urgently into the shadows,

eagerly wanting to believe any sign of life

was the requested vision.

But, a truthful child,

at last I rose, stretched cramped limbs

and wandered back to people at play,

sad my request had been denied.

 

What only now I begin to know

is that something was given me in that hour:

a hunger,

a yearning deep as a wound

for the in-breaking of the Holy

in a way even I could touch.

 

That simple request

set me upon a path from which I have never strayed;

a seeking I have never abandoned.

 

Now, near half a century later

I see that what was granted me

was not a vision to explain and defend all my life,

but Vision itself,

a way of seeing apart from vision—

a certainty of Presence without sense or form—

a call heard not through the ears

but in the bowels.

 

O, Child of wood and dappled light,

I, your older self now bless you

for your courage to ask what could not be given.

“Trust your seeking,” I whisper in your straining ear.

“Trust the yearning—it shows the way.

  Trust the hunger—it is a gift.”

 

Thus I kissed you

and sent you on your way.