The Invisible God. John J. Brugaletta

and forward of us stretches time

      devoid of Him and of the way made straight.

      Our churches try to keep and mime the Christ,

      but only Christ himself bears glory's weight.

      However, truth may be that Deity

      desires in us a faith so large that we

      will bear a stretch of seeming-endless wait

      for Him, the Bridegroom, and our coming peace.

      What good is knowing when He will come back?

      Would we rise early then to fill our lamp oil's lack?

      2. Assurances

      "[Josiah] encouraged them in the service of the house of the Lord."

      2 Chronicles 35:2

      "We desire each one of you to show the same earnestness in realizing the full assurance of hope until the end."

      Hebrews 6:11

      ASSURANCES

      It's autumn (as the British say) when apples fall

      blood-red against the whitened orchard floor,

      each one an ineffective sun, too red, too small

      for doing more than mime that middling star's one chore.

      Enough of that. Those trees will blossom in the spring

      and bear their succulence again, but we will not,

      except in sons and daughters and their own offspring,

      while we take to the soil to rest and then to rot.

      Is there another life our souls will wake to find?

      We have assurances there is, but then there are

      assurances that nothingness awaits our mind,

      as black and meaningless as space or fireplace char.

      Where lies the fact? Is it where someone died and rose?

      If people then were weak as we would be today,

      they would not bet their lives on what they just suppose.

      On that I'll base belief, and not on what some say.

      THE SPEED OF LIGHT

      A billion light years is a fantasy

      to me and to a lot of other folks.

      It ripples off the tongue like meet for tea

      and many other words, including jokes.

      But try to think of it in miles or feet.

      How many trips to buy a shirt or shoes?

      That speed your shot goes in a game of skeet—

      the pellets are not fast at all. They ooze.

      Before and after all our lives, the stars

      explode, black holes collide and spread in trillions

      while we eat breakfast, read a book, drive cars.

      We live our tiny lives in modest millions.

      Yet we, and maybe only we, observe

      and think of it. Is that way we serve?

      THE HAND

      A box of matches is a homely thing,

      a drawer that's movable in which there lies

      a handy squad of soldiers sleeping cold.

      But fumble one to hand and scratch its head,

      and it will leap to life, an ardent plasma

      avid to destroy a wooden world,

      or light a candle's wick or else a stove.

      It is no better and no worse than men

      who love to build and also to destroy.

      What is this cosmos but a field of gleams

      that light a little while and then go cold?

      What lives is temporal and loves to die.

      And yet a trillion stars replace the dead.

      Where is the hand that scratches their cold head?

      THE BUNCH OF GRAPES AND THE SON

      The sun, with all those planets revolving around