Here I Am

Home is at the heart of all visions
worth carrying around for another day.
The manual for homemaking resides
somewhere on some dusty bookshelf.
It contains narratives of imaginings
promising a return from the long exile.
Broken hearts and inconsolable loss
are the purview of an uninterested god,
untouched by the pain that inhabits
any sort of previously made covenant.
Yes, the wicked surround the righteous
once again.  And those who cry, "Violence!"
look for trouble and hope justice does not prevail.
Stubborn faithfulness when almost everything
has gone wrong is to offer praise with eyes wide open.
The kings with no souls will never listen
to the priests of sound and silence who beckon
from the crosses set at the top of torn hills.
We must all speak when we are called
with speech that approaches song insisting
in the longing to serve, crying, "Here I am."