Mouthfuls of God

     “God’s in the dust,
     not sifted

     out from confusion.”

               --Denise Levertov, “This Day”

Which means grace tastes like a mouthful
of powdery dirt, my face forced
into the ball diamond as I trip over myself

and sprawl before the very boys
I want to envy my speed and power,
the girls I want, just want.

Here I lie--gagging and spitting
little brown clouds of dust,
like wheat flour, uncooked, unrisen, unsifted.

Summer has worn the field so dry, planed
it to a weary land where a few arid breaths
of wind gag and cough their own puffs of soil.

The psalmist would say earth
and wind themselves thirst for God
or a god to revive them. But by now

I have no time to choke down grace.
I am busy picking myself up from second base,
brushing off a once bright gold uniform,

and stepping forward with no faith
my legs might bear me. Yet I will run
far enough to sit beyond the range

of every loving, laughing, or jealous eye
in the watching world. Alone, bent low
with hands on knees, I pray in gulps

to catch breath, any breath, of a god's better air.

Copyright © 2001 David Wright