Barry Casey’s Wait Here explores the themes of finding God and healing through the wild miracles of nature. As the stanzas progress, and tension builds of some force or presence hidden up in the high country, we watch a seeker offering his cold stone heart to the mountain storm or God, in hopes that it will be broken down and rejuvenated, much like rain does to the earth.
Wait Here
God waits
for some sign of human feeling.
Nothing’s here but gelled indifference,
cooling to the touch.
God thunders in the
mountain pass. A juniper
throws arms against the line of squalls.
Granite teeth are bared.
Something waits
beyond the blackened timber.
Here it is, the tool
to strip the flesh from one’s own breast,
expose one’s heart toward the sky
beneath the stars in four directions.
Spirit, take this heart of stone, this
lichened stone and break it slow.
I hold it to the sky of rain
if you will green its life again.
Do you hold your breath, far God,
delighting in your showering grace,
though most will only see it
as a warp within the slant of light?
Barry Casey
Barry Casey has published in Spectrum Magazine, Brevity, Rocky Mountain News, Patheos, and Faculty Focus. His collection of essays, Wandering, Not Lost: Essays on Faith, Doubt, and Mystery, was published by Wipf and Stock in November 2019. He writes from Burtonsville, Maryland. He wrote a weekly column on faith and spirituality for three years for Spectrum Magazine, and taught philosophy, ethics, and communications for 37 years at universities in Maryland and Washington, D.C.
His website is danteswoods.com, and his Twitter is @bearcee