I came one Lenten week because You called. Or maybe I did.
It seemed, one day, we had stopped talking, and then You were gone. Or I was.

It was just that suddenly I noticed a silence.
You seemed distant in a place I could not reach.
You were not in my meetings, in my books, in the long slow distance of my runs
In the dry staccato of my keyboard.
 
You were not in the laughter of children. Certainly not in the rage of traffic. 
You were not in our usual meeting places,
You, who’ve always sat beside me and held my hand.

It almost felt like a game when you said: “Come.” So I went. 

And there you were. In my clichés of prayer – 
In the aging trees. In the fallen leaves. In the empty swing chairs.
In the myriad bird calls of morning.
In the moving homilies. In the hushed sharing of comrades.
They all spoke of You.

But my thirst would not be slaked.

And so Thursday, You showed Yourself as they sang the Gloria.
You were there Holding us close to You as we walked down Our own Emmaus.
In the voices and hearts of fellow life walkers
In a late afternoon jog among the interred.
And In the remotest caverns of my heart
You whispered, “I am here.”

It was Monday when I sang a song for You
By a pond, A light breeze brushed my cheek
The sky so crisp, so clear, I saw the shape and color of every leaf
The shrubs opening up to the sun’s gentle kiss
A white butterfly floating in the Now Time had stopped
And all of Life hummed with You.

It is Easter and I am alive.