L.R. Harvey Poetry

  LITTLE ENGINE Alarming how a well-artic-                ulated argument can shift our apprehension of reality—                but then , I've heard a penny can derail a thundering train,                so maybe it's much the same.      Either way, we need to travel                 to the Mountains there, so help us, Lord, to prudently determine                proper means of transportation that will bring us to the Peaks,                be it iron tracks or bloody feet.

THESE WORDS I This poem isn’t chalice nor the loaf, thus insufficient for  the hunger gnawing at the heart.  These words fall infinitely short  of spanning cross the Endless  that abides, are all but hopeless for the work of bridging what  may not, by word, be bridged. This very line itself is quite in- adequate to fill the hollow in  the soul, is as a dying candle to illuminate a vast cathedral. So thank you, Lord, that this          is not the task for such as these.  They are, instead, a lover’s wink,  a yellow window on an evening street, a mist before the waterfall—                if not transcendence in itself, a call .

PARKING LOT PSALM Despite inclining towards a red           balloon in preference to our lives,   despite the awful way we begged,           repeatedly , that you would let us give  it chase, despite the way we thrashed           about and writhed our hairless wrists  and threw our toddler weight against            your grip, you never let us run across the interstate. Thank you. It’s almost           like You knew a thing we couldn't yet.

BEATIFIC GLIMPSES At times I sense the world, this world, is almost right. Early mornings, curled up beneath the comforter to catch the clink of scrambled eggs and spatula confiding with the pan, or on a chill October hike along the Creeper Trail through Northern Virginia farmland,   something whispers this is how it’s meant t o be . It’d be impossible, you understand, to recognize a place you've never seen, so maybe this is knowing planted deep beneath the ripples of a logical capacity,  floating in the undiscovered regions  of the spirit where the big fish swim.                To nibble on the line is just like Him.

THE HOLY HUNT I’ve done my diligence about the place.                I've snuffled like a blue-tick to find a trace of something tangible—a print perhaps?—                as confirmation that I haven’t lost the track.  A hunter knows , I’ve heard, the presence of                 his quarry, obtains a transitory tingling of the fingertips (or is it heart) that some-                thing’s surely close . Don’t get me wrong,  I wouldn’t deign to call myself a 'hunter' in                 the denotative sense, but if the sole criterion  for such a designation is the latent presence                 of a smoldering below the heart, perhaps I am.  I’m close, I sense, or maybe He is close to me —...

LINGERING AT THE STEPS                      'And the word of the Lord was rare in those days.' * And seeing as he hasn't deigned to answer for a while now, or even (seemingly) stirred,  our natural supposition is he must be out or maybe staying in, though really both  are equally unnerving if followed to their logical conclusions. So how ought we to fare  in such a doubtful circumstance as ours?  Ruling out the possibility of blatant disregard, perhaps our best approach is just to settle in beside the 'welcome' mat and sit a spell,  hoping that we’ll catch him when he leaves the place or meet him on return. Yes, at least this offers us, I guess , a chance of getting in an audience, an infinitely better chance than grumbling off into the night convinced he doesn't care for such as us. Let's knock again.

BEYOND A BUSH But what if this would constitute  as Holy Ground as well, and that , and even over there , and really all of it’s aflame with something well- beyond our marginal ability to see, much less apprehend ? And maybe all our heads are hissing with the  tongues of pentecostal fire, our des- ert pilgrimage preceded by a pillar just as big and hot as theirs. Consider that you and I are currently engulfed in lightning on a mountain's peak! If this is true, Eternal Flame, forgive us  these our sandals and our tennis shoes.                Y ou understand, I trust, our tender feet.