Why We Are Here

in response to this week's totally optional prompt

Because in the dark before time the Lord
Drew the contours of our eyelids, fashioned
The shapes of our toes, designed
Each hair upon our legs with exquisite attention;

Because proteins in the sea were sunburnt,
And fish left stranded in the mud, and thunder
Lizards brought down in their pride
By the dust of Yucatan;

Because since beginningless time
We have suffered and sinned and suffered again,
Lifetime after lifetime in the slow
Unrolling of a thousand monstrous kalpas;

Therefore our task
Might be to discover what God intended,
Or to be ourselves the emerging intention of God,
Or to free all beings from suffering.

But you know as well as I
That we are here to wash the dishes
And kiss our children good night
And worry about money;

That we are here to see the fog
Caught in the branches of the douglas firs
On the hills across the river; that we are here
To fall in love with inappropriate persons;

That we are here to fret and plan and avoid
And be unworthy of ourselves, to lose
Keys and checkbooks and birth certificates,
And to write poems about it all.