I Was Made For Woodruff Park

i was made for woodruff park, all covered
in the morning sunlight. the flow of the
gutter is last night's winter snow. It's the
simple surprises that take us from earth

to ethereal heaven. i was made for the
quarries, the quandaries and the quiet
violence of life. where green calls out
from concrete, where asphalt finds a

border in spring, where the snow clings
heroically in tiny patches to the shining
canvas of grass. i was made to slow my
foot steps, to look up at the miraculous

blue morning, to drink in the clouds and
the fading stars. there, the buildings over-
hear our whispers, all hurried and discrete,
all broken and far from recovery. and God,

that mighty clock maker, that ancient trouble
maker, sits himself down on the lawn. he
opens his arms with playful gaiety, and
calls me by my given name. his smile is

mana, his heartbeat is rocky water, his
hands are the promised land. oh, so dimly
do I see. but there he sits, tracing his finger
in the snow turning to mud, washing me

with his eyes, bidding me come with a
knowing wink. haunting my conscience
with a whisper. there, in woodruff park.

and though I kick and scream, though I
run from those arms and plug my ears in
supermarket aisles, I was not made for the
noise. I was not made to fill a time and a space.

No, I was made for unlimited silence, for the
brokenness of being known. for the silence
of the soul is where i rest.
and there in woodruff park
there is such blaring
silence.