Nod

I’m ashamed I miss the congregation
the teamwork

cheering the Lord’s descent

setting us apart
chosen as we are

I miss the altar

the laying of hands

the suturing

the melodies that vindicate howsoever we need
in the hour we bleat like sheep

confused & loosed

into the blur

I want to be among them again

nodding

bonded by certainty that I’m in the world
but not of it

shaded by a man resurrected

only to endear me fully

to the almighty void

But all my wilderness

the musky flora

pushing up through me

the jagged rocks along my borders
my weather events crowning like a newborn
the tearing & blistering nutrients

in the skins of my animals

What god can unlatch its jaw
& swallow me whole?