Enough

Heaven has enough windows for everyone,
Yet there's a secret wedged behind each pane.
God seals His lips with paraffin, but
The devil knows how to speak in tongues.

There's a secret wedged behind each pain
A mortal man or woman feels; we're dumb,
But the devil knows how to speak in tongues:
He voices our longings in wind and rain.

Each mortal man and woman feels numb
When gazing through the windows of heaven,
Where our longings are voiced in windy rain.
(Hell has no windows, only endless tunnels.)

Still gazing up to the windows of heaven,
We search for God, but He's not there.
In windowless Hell, beyond the tunnels,
We'll find him at last, burning the air.

We search for God, but He's not where
We thought we'd find Him—burning the air
In Hell's kitchen, beyond our tunnel vision.
Instead, He's gazing into our earthly windows,

Watching as flesh-bound men and women drown
In longing for that primal garden, where God
Rained down in a golden silence, and was nowhere
And everywhere at once, housed in each breast.

Copyright © 2004 Maurya Simon All rights reserved
from Ghost Orchid
Red Hen Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission