Epiphany

Epiphany –
How God's Light Reaches All the Wise Men
Even the Foolish Ones

My best friend, Brian, and I are somewhere
in the Black Hills of South Dakota
in the woods, on foot, looking for our tent.
It’s long after sunset.
It’s just begun to rain.
And we are lost.

It’s a different kind of lost 
than I’ve ever been before,
lost without any bearing.
The night is moonless, and the path a distant memory.
The darkness swallows all but the nearest trees.

The tent is wherever Brian pitched it
while I was warming the beans for dinner.
He says he tied a piece of navy fabric to an evergreen
to mark the spot.
He also says that it’s right near a rock.
If only we can find the rock and the tree we’ll surely find
the screaming orange tent with silver reflectors on every side.

I’m dressed for the effortless stroll to the tent 
I thought this would be,
wearing flip flops and shorts, 
cradling an increasingly wet sleeping bag.
At this point, I'd happily sleep in the car 
if we could find our way back.

But we are lost –

Not only to where we are going, 
but from where we have come.
Lost.
So I stand in the dark and rain, 
doing the only thing I can,
getting mad,
and mocking him in my head.

A piece of navy fabric? 
A nearby rock?
Really? 
Really?

People die from better ideas than this
and get Darwin awards for improving the human genome.

This isn't some weekend camping trip.
I quit my job for this,
spent months planning and preparing,
planning and re-planning
and perfecting my plans.
A piece of navy fabric?!

Underneath my anger I do wonder
what will happen to us.
No, it’s not so cold, 
but how cold is cold enough to kill
when combined with wet and exposed skin?

I contemplate this question more
out of spite
than true concern.
If we die 
that’ll show Brian 
how dumb he is.

This is where I am –

Not merely lost in the woods,
but in the dark and cold of my own mind,
when I look up
in exasperation and defeat
and see through the canopy above me

Stars,
so many stars
that I shudder,
the way I would were it sunlight
falling on my skin after a swim.

Suddenly it's almost warm
and the rain – falling from a clear sky –
a blessing, not a curse,
and I find myself
so glad to be here,
wherever here is,
where everywhere I look is
so much more than eye can see,

And the improbability of being here
whispers against my neck hairs
of the greater improbability
of being here at all.