Better at night

Better at night

than in day that

I come to ask my question

my question to which

I know the answer

but the asking is what

is important, a parched sponge

in need of water.

And the answer comes,

obliterating the question:

I am taken down a path

I did not expect, a path

I did not know

existed.

I ask my question at night,

better at night, He answers

my question with day,

confounding the night.

Can I be reborn in the flesh,

can I be reborn in the spirit,

can I be whitened

in pale linen, cleaned,

my heart restored not

to what it was but to what

it was meant to be;

can I be reborn?

Yes, he says, the possible

is an imperative.

Photograph: Study for Jesus and Nicodemus by Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937); study painted 1898-1899.