Shekinah

by Barry Casey

As through a window I am seeing my life
And the days and nights of it already spent.

It folds against itself like a mountain trail.
I had imagined it a willow seeking the source of water.

And the people, the animals, the invisible angels
Coming and going ceaselessly through the air,

Some carried by the notes of a red guitar,
Some drifting like Noah’s Ark.

They flare up briefly, then lapse back.

Who will know how to reach a grandmother’s
God, the one whose presence is sung about, prayed for,

Whose touch in dappled sunlight and silk of midnight
Is like the resonance of a plucked string or a chord

For two hands of black and white keys—
Made and held, then left ringing.

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Barry Casey is the author of Wandering, Not Lost, a collection of essays on faith, doubt, and mystery, published by Wipf and Stock (2019). His poetry has appeared in Fauxmoir, Half and One, Humans of the World, Lighthouse Weekly, Patheos, Pensive Journal, Rockvale Review, Spectrum Magazine, The Dewdrop, The Ulu Review, and Vita Poetica. He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Religion from Claremont Graduate University and writes from Burtonsville, Maryland.