Called Out

Out of the silent dust

was I called to be

Blown by some sacred breath
into the spring of existence,
particles stirred by
quaking earth and fire,
drowned by storm,
invisibly formed

Some distant song
carried its precious mass
through the void

“Who will go for us?”

Ears to hear, then unexpected response,
“Send me!”

And just as I Am is,
I became further I,
germinated,
embodied,
and released
with eyes to see,
ears to hear,
breath with which
to make voice
into the matchless
universe,
legs with which
to wander the shadowed valley,
arms and hands with which
to grasp, to gain, to give

According to each day
according to every season
according to any moment,
of which all are new
births under different light,
searching, and seeking,
wandering and weeping,
struggling,
learning
being,
serving,
loving,
in vital witness,
as ever be can be,
woven as am I of paradoxical parameters,
warp and weft, contradictory

[right and wrong,
sickness and health,
real and false,
free and oppressed,
generous and miserly,
careful and careless,

studious and ignorant,
shy and outgoing,
loud and silent,
joyful and angry,
studious and perfunctory,
color, full and less,
visible and invisible,
and so on, ad infinitum]

This song,
mine and ours,
knows no end
but partial ends forthcoming

by and by
—one knows not the wherefore nor why,
only that existence presses forward,
revolving and evolving,
perhaps toward,
and even sowing,
knowing

[shall ever I do?
shall ever I know
what I is, am and ever was
or why,
and if then,
what next might be/is,
what might be beyond
or what beyonding might bond?]

And when the Song calls me back
to that valley of bones
that river of dust,

Be, as I’ll be
marked:
Return to Sender,
Am I to I Am,
Thine to Thee.

© 2019 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

(A meditation for lent on International Women's Day)