Sestina of Small Wonders

Things so rarely go to plan. The string of colored light

loses to a loose bulb, the roast burns black, gifts falter

against the strength of my want. I think the last time

I got everything on my list was as a very small child --

since, I've tried to stop wishing. Instead, I puzzle aged men

who profess to need nothing, who already have everything.

//

Anticipation is a lit candle over a table laid with everything

but dessert. The outside dark creeps in to touch our light

with mystery. Even the lengthened faces of these somber men

seem more at ease with life's disappointments when I falter

at the carving of my charred roast -- to them, I'm still a child.

Well done, they wink, trade the knife for a story to test time.

//

Their stories stretch back, dig further into lost lands of time

I've never visited. I search their words for wishbones, find everything

loses meaning here, sunk into half a bottle. I remember being a child

and wishing for a glass like this to hold and swish against the light.

And here I am. No different than I ever felt, still falling falter

before small wonders unseen by the eyes of simple men.

//

Perhaps that's unfair. Like me, like everyone I know, these men

can only unfold in comfort. We protect our private joys all the time,

fear their dissipation in cold, open air. More and more I falter

before the chancel, hesitate to open my lips and accept everything

my neighbor God has to offer. I prefer to admire the stained glass light

over the choir, close my eyes to crack against the soprano of a child.

//

High, clear mourning for long-lost babies, the simple belief of a child

in the wild. If only I would still swallow tales of lowly women, evil men

past tapestries and oil paintings. It's only as objects held under light

that I grasp at truth. I only trust a promise against the grit of time.

Small wonder, I live for nothing when I fear I'll fall for everything.

Small wonder, I rarely step in courage past where I think I'll falter.

//

Oh, God, I'll hunt. I'll search, I'll grasp, I'll hold and unfold and falter.

I may never release the petty hurts. I may never be a blameless child

again, may never follow a recipe or rule, may fail at everything

I try. I won't follow your name in the way of babbling, wise men

I can't trust past my own birth. More than a bible, I cling to the time

on Christmas Eve when I looked to the moon and saw a cross of light.

//

Everything matters. I falter under the weight of wrong and work

to distill my pleasure from light, try to wonder gamely about a child

that men once sought on sand, and still seek time and time again.