REIGNING PROMISES

TESTIMONY, DISPUTE, AND ADVOCACY FROM BELOW

            --After Brueggemann

That each breath is a gift from God

remains real strange these years later

after first stumbling and fall. It was me,

arguing, the Bishop only smiled. The book

that breathes new life re-surfaces

in my own garden. My own?

Where tentativeness ceases,

listening never does,  So says

the Biblical scholar raising

language to alter that

which defends me,

a liberating way. What

is required? Walking

the poem across the abyss

without a net. What is required?

Of the man: Withholding

nothing of his being. Not me

looking for God, rather

God seeking me out.

Terror is anything but domestic.

Just breathing, already edited.

Fall down in joy and blindness!

Fulfillments already exceed the promised.

So many ways to read when new.

In, with, under, against.

Turning and returning.

Imagine the one who would protect God.

The one who calls Saturday the longest day.

Jim Bodeen

14 July 2017