I don’t know how long I was in the desert.
The days boiled
and the nights froze.
The sky brought no rain
and the wind brought no relief,
only sand to blind the eyes
and heat to burn the lungs.
Forty days passed
like forty years,
slow as the mountains grow.
I was a young man
when I walked into that desert,
but I had gray in my hair
and gray in my beard
when I finally arrived
at your gate.
You called me in.
You called my name,
the name my father called me
before I left.
You gave me a cup of water,
then a cup of wine.
There will be a feast tonight,
you say,
to honor what was lost
and now found.
You guide my steps
through your garden.
You open the face
of every flower.
You conduct this symphony
of birdsong.
How could I have been
so deaf and blind?
All those years
of missing miracles
right underneath my feet…
Now my eyes are open.
Now I remember who I am.
I stretch out my open hands
and your love flows like a river
through my fingertips.