Maryland poet Barry Casey shines a light on the briefest of miracles that is life with his poem “Vocation”. A ministry of movement and physicality, the lines of Barry’s “Vocation” hum with kinetic energy as he informs us on the sacred holiness of being. In the afterglow of this poem, the reader is left with an understanding of how precious existence is, how radiant, if even for the briefest of moments on a cosmic scale.
Vocation
Say your word is only as good
as the motion of your body
through space. It is worship
to kneel for justice.
Make a prayer of your body,
this loosely wrapped cloak
that was a sail before the wind.
Now make it a bush waiting to burn
on this holy ground.
Be a rumor to yourself
of a small bell in the night.
The sparrow that wings
out of darkness into darkness,
the light between so brief,
so real, so dear.
Barry Casey is the author of Wandering, Not Lost, a collection of essays on faith, doubt, and mystery, published by Wipf and Stock (2019). His recent work has appeared in Brevity, Faculty Focus, Detroit Lit Mag, Fauxmoir, Humans of the World, Lighthouse Weekly, Mountain Views, Patheos, Pensive Journal, Rockvale Review, Spectrum Magazine, The Dewdrop, The Purpled Nail, and The Ulu Review. He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Religion from Claremont Graduate University. He writes from Burtonsville, Maryland.
Originally published at The Dewdrop.
