Oblivious

Oblivious

You, with your acne scarred face and spiky hair,
a teen with childlike fantasies alight in your imagination,
you talk of dinosaurs still roaming the Earth
and mourn their deaths again and again.
You're odd and unaccepted among peers, yet oblivious
of their belief that you're insignificant.

You sit in the backseat of my car, your new CD blaring
a Christian song by a songwriter I’ve never heard
and I ponder your God, my God.  You, with so few gifts
but that one, your voice, resonating with a song you’ve never heard.
Arms raised up to the heavens, you declare your faith, “praise God”
you proclaim.  Without reservation, without a doubt, He is yours. 

And somehow, the weight of your liabilities, the burden of you
is carried back home where you began, a twinkle in His eye.
It's as if God says, “Let’s see if they can find
the golden needle in the haystack,
or will they merely see the impossibility of you
and turn their backs in frustration.”

God does have a sense of humor and I think you were in on the joke.
On the way home from that hospital
we put kids when they act strange or unwise,
for just a moment between my embarrassment and empathy,
I saw a golden glint in your eye.  In the harmonious notes of your song,
I heard the sound of that haystack shifting

from the weight of our worries for you, our fears about you. 
And I pray we never lose sight of that needle,
while we seek our own lost faith, shifting haystacks as we search. 
Maybe, if we found our own glimmer of hope, we could sing like you,
with you, out loud, among people we scarcely know,
oblivious to our fear of insignificance.


SWPoet

Dedicated to the slow and misunderstood,
with hidden gifts we dare not ignore,
a fire we dare not extinguish,
and a message we dare not silence.