Looking for God

I imagine
because you walked in here
through this title,
because you are reading this,
that even though you don’t know me,
you know me.
We meet in this place of words
of shared longing
for something
we can’t quite name.

Let the finger that touches this pencil
touch the eyes
that read these words,
gently salving your eyelids
with their meanings
freed and liquid.
We’ll crack open the O
of wonder and let the air escape
for both of us to breathe.
I am reaching out to you right now:
can you feel me touching the face
that no one knows (even you)
in this bright
right now?

Together we can enter through
the door of our yearning
the endless room of love
that is built by God,
the room of humanhood pooled,
so frail and so full of might.
Here we might embrace the world
and together
hold it close
as one would to calm
an agitated child
whose limbs thrash out
against fear-of-many-names
like the sudden arms of lightning
in an April storm.

If you do not want this, stop reading now.

But if you do,
follow this line of words
into silence,
into the stillness
of the space
of our sameness.
(Even though I do not know you/I do.
And even though you do not know me/you do.)
We live in the might
of our longing
and hang curtains red
in open windows
to dance like flames
in the wind that fills our room
with All
with flashing wings or fire
or in a quiet sun.

-Kitty Yanson