The most remarkable thing I can say about myself is that once, in the dark of my preteen bedroom, I met Jesus. The best way I can explain it is to say it was — and is — like arriving home and setting out on a great journey all at once. So it is that every day bears the strange juxtaposition of being both home and away, both arrived and arriving. Yet in that incarnate mystery, I find myself, as William Cullen Bryant penned, “lone wandering, but not lost.”
But I am not exactly alone either. You may find me, when I get the chance, striking out along the same jagged sidewalks (where I wonder if the view is missing another tree) with my daughter in tow. Later we might share coffee (decaf for her, but black — she likes the good stuff) or tea (real or pretend), or watch a movie as a family, my wife giving me the eye for making another pun. It’s small-town Ohio life. We make our own fun.
As I go along, paper and pixels multiply in snapshots, glimpses of what lies beyond what Paul the apostle called a dim mirror. There are signs that point the way. Poetry can be one of them.