A God Too Quiet

God is quiet.
Too quiet, at times,
for my preference,

leaving me to the noise
of others,
those that mean well,
and those that don’t,

and worse, leaving me
to the noise inside my head.
that cacophony of voices
from a life lived too much in the crowd.

It would be easy to feel
abandoned, but I prefer
to believe
he is simply letting me grow up,
make my own mistakes
at least the non-fatal ones
and trusting me to make them only once.

Still, I wish he spoke
more often,
and more clearly
and perhaps in a language
I understood,

fluent confusion perhaps,
or self-recrimination,
or a half dozen others
my therapist taught me in hours on the couch.

Perhaps though, that is his strategy,
to leave me straining for his whisper,
that truth under the noise
that can only be heard
when you cut away
everything else.

About this poem. 

I am wrestling with things I cannot name. I’ll figure it out, but some days, I’d just like a hint, like God saying “Warmer… warmer.”, or “Colder… colder”.  A little much to ask perhaps, but hey, a man can try.

The picture was taken at Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Tom