Walking with God

I was twelve when I heard you,
from the lines of an old hardback,
its pages yellow, like parchments
from some dusty monastery.

It told the story of Enoch,
a quiet man who walked with you
through fields of tall, green grass,
where you and he conversed
waist-deep among blades
that whispered, sighed in waves.

Hungry for you, I set out from home,
to a hill sloping down to the river,
across the water from towering
iron furnaces crumbled to rust.

Here, in grass browning to straw 
in autumn's slow burn,
stalks parted around me,
stroked my legs through the stiff blue
of newly woven denim.
I had put on my best for you...

Thunderheads bruised the sky;
cold gusts sliced through me.
I stood for a while, 
calling out to you.

Then a warm light broke
through the clouds,
and the field glowed brilliantly
copper, amber, gold.

Distinct from me, amid grass
hissing before the storm,
blades parted, bent, flattened
in a patch much like the one around me.
I knew you stood there,
invisible but no wider than me
from that hollow in the field.

We walked before I spoke,
me struggling to see through
my own tangled hair.
Your reply was quiet, patient,
flowering softly in my heart
without a word.

Scott Speck
08/04/2003