Skittish

I remember green pastures and still waters,

Days of delight in the maplewood,
Evening swims in the lifegiving deep,
Flametongues at the campfire singalong,
One eyeopened soulpiercing afternoon
Alone with my savior on a lakeside hill.

But I got older and worldwise and skittish,
Thought about Bible school, decided against it.

My English degrees will teach me to read
The Bible plus Marx,
The Bible plus Butler,
The Bible plus Sartre.
After all, context is everything.
Right?

I learned the maplewood was infested
With mosquitoes and poison ivy,
The pool wasn’t as clean as it looked,
And while it’s ok to observe from a distance,
The campfire itself is much too powerful, 

Too unpredictable to approach.
That lakeside hill?
Just a lake. Just a hill.

My spirit came to believe there never were 

green pastures, still waters.

This world is a wasteland

Where wanderers seek… what?

The Good Life?
True Love?
The American Dream?
A Dignified Death?

We are strangers in the desert,
Each trying not to be the sucker,
Dying of thirst in a dry and weary land.
We form hollow alliances, 

Celebrate hollow victories,
Lament hollow defeats, 

Hunt for some meaning —

Any meaning —
In this dead and deathly place.

So that’s how you catch 

A skittish English major:
I’m a deer panting for water;
you’re the only drink around.
I left the green pastures, and you followed,
Cloaked in clouds on my dark days,
Robed in fire through my infernos,
Always here, always gently calling.

When at last I hear
And fall ashamed,

Depleted at your feet,
You help me up
And hold my head
And give me 

A very long drink.