Hands on the keys,
Head trying to focus,
I wait.

For too many days
I’ve let my eyes be distracted
By swirling circumstance.

My head is spinning.
I am befuddled.
The world is just not right.

But angst will not fix it
And consternation leads nowhere.
I think, ‘This just can’t be!’

But it is.
It is . . .
So, where are you?

‘Well,’ I think I hear you whisper,
‘Not in the eddies of befuddlement
That cloud your brain.’

‘Not in the tiny corners
Of consternation,
Or of fear.’

‘Not in any careful arrangement
Of concepts or creeds.
All those are too small.’

‘You will not catch me here or there.
You will not catch me . . .
anywhere.’

Are you now the Cat in the Hat,
Dancing amid the chaos of toys
Sent flying by Thing One and Two?

There is some truth in that story.
Some twinkle of sense
Amid the wry phrases.

And one of those twinkles
Lodges itself in my heart.
Stories catch the truth better than concepts.

Stories are grounded in life.
Stories don’t have to tell the truth for all time.
They just have to ring true in that particular embodiment.

‘But,’ I hear myself argue from the corner,
‘Isn’t truth true for all times and all places?
Why does it take a particular embodiment to show itself?’

‘Because its just that big,’ you whisper.
‘Its just that big. Its just that expansive.
You cannot hold it all.’

‘But where it touches your life,
You can glimpse its passing.
When it nods at you, you can nod in return.’

‘The trick, of course,
Is to get out of your head,
And into your life.’

‘Live your story
And keep an eye out for me.
You can’t miss me, if you are watching.’

‘The hat gives me away every time.’

[image cropped from photo by Daniel X. O’Neil per cc 2.0]