to see God

the pattern of the yearning

pattern permeates the universe:

and, as if we are eyes that really need glasses,

we only get hints of what’s there, 

rough shapes that bleed into each other

and we do not easily know how to click into clarity,

we usually cannot differentiate enough 

so that we can stumble into 
the awful glory inherent in understanding,

that understanding that will shake us to our core,

I look into the night sky

and the stars amid the black seem just white noise,

yet I start to know that early people

could see God in the patterns

and do their best to live to fit into

what they could know of the eternal,

I look at people and only know the tiniest fragment

of who each is at the heart,

I speak English, and I wish I knew Spanish,

and really any other language others speak,

others that I might be able to know better in their own tongue,

and I might be able to know the universe better 
in how that tongue shapes understanding,

nevertheless, verbal language is but one way of knowing,

I wish I knew math better

for its rules determine much of reality’s game,

I love to learn,

for every pattern that reveals itself

helps me to see more truly,

and each can then shake me to my core,

only in that shaking do I start to get the wonder

of the yearning in the patterns we can know as God.

by Henry H. Walker

August 25, ’13