Men in white

After Luke 24:50-53 and Acts 1:1-11

They’re looking up,

expecting to see

something other

than disappearing 

cloud, something,

or someone, coming

back, and instead

they hear two men

in white, and see

two men in white,

asking why look

up, he will come

back the same way,

enveloped in cloud.

They listen, they heed,

and they almost

miss what the two

in white call them:

Men of Galilee,

men who cast nets,

men who fish.

Photograph by Sandy Millar via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Back to the city

After Luke 24:50-53 and Acts 1:1-11

From the olive mount

they walk back to the city,

the city of endings

and beginnings, his words

echoing, wait for the one

who will be sent, wait

for the one with power

of spirit, the one who

comes upon you, and you

will know when that

happens, but not the time

it happens, it is all of a piece,

of a plan, starting back

in the city but spreading

outward from there,

the place of endings

and beginnings, 

you do not know the then,

but you will know the now.

Photograph by Robert Bye via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Two miles away

After Luke 24:50-53 and Acts 1:1-11

A last meeting,

a final journey

two miles away

from the city,

a quiet walk

in springtime,

the walk familiar

to the olive mount,

the place the man

was called alive

two miles away

from the city.

He stops and turns, 

lifting his hands,

hands bearing scars

and holes, original

stigmata, hands lifted

in blessing the ones

he loved, the heavens

folding around him

like a cloud,

as the blessing 

continues.

Photograph by Alex Favale via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Waiting

After Acts 1

The creation waits, standing

on tiptoe, for the sons to be

revealed, to be

redeemed, first the sons

then the creation to be

redeemed from the then

to the will be

to the crown,

waiting

sometimes it is not go ye

sometimes it is stay ye

and wait

wait for the words spoken

by tongues of fire

wait, and you will know

why you wait;

it is not what you expect.

Admonished by men in white

they turn from the cloud,

from the hill, returning

to the town,

to the room, to wait

for what is not known,

for what is hoped.

Photograph: scene from the interior of the sculpture “Threshold” at Laity Lodge, Leakey, Texas.