theophany

Past the swath of the horizon
God lingers—or lurks, more like,
way up in the air with his son.

No one can really see either of them,
though we can see the swath okay
with its fire by night, smoke by day;

farmers and ranchers have divvied
it up. It’s no longer interesting
to us, just a flat gulf. In the city

where I live there is a lot of crime.
I don’t even know why I’m
telling you all this. We get

the sense (my wife and me) that God’s
left us here, though in theory
we know that he manages every

feather on every one of the birds,
keeps each soft gusset in its place,
even as he grays the hairs of our heads.

God’s gone dark but still he ranges
like a huge, invisible Jesse James,
beyond the edges of what we can see—

or so we reassure each other as we
take out the trash, butter our toast,
and as the sun continues rising, rising.