A room without books is like a body without a soul.

Sitting on a broken stump in the middle of

The barren spot behind the wood in the middle of the

Long and empty afternoon

The charcoal from when the stump was licked by flames a few years back

Kicking up against my white soled heels

I sat there with my bow and quiver full of arrows on the prowl

Knowing my arrows only ever hit the lazy pine cones lying around in the dirt

An un food related kind of hunt

And I’m sitting there drawn out in a related kind of agony

God I cry when I finally can name it

God I’m so hungry

I’m so hungry if someone offers me any food I think I’ll eat it and everything around it and maybe even

The hand handing it to me

Regardless of everything

I’m so hungry if they’re smart I reckon

They’ll notice this monstrous consuming desire ness about me

And leave me alone devouring in the corner

So that the only thing I’ll eat up

Is me

Starving here on this old stump

While the line of ants eyes me

I’m crying, keening, in a note that recalls

Another time a few months back

With a tentative imploring asking if somehow God might help me survive this starvation diet by handing me a fish

Instead of a stone

Like a dad might

(It’s from an old story).

But

I know I’ve got to face the music sometime

I know I’ve got to man up

So I gasp in a breath to kind of fill up my shoulders

And make them face as square forward as they can through skin and bone

Perched here on the thrice fired stump

And I say ok God

I’ll take the stone!!

I’ll take it!!

If that’s what you want to give!!—

Bracing myself for the crushing blows—

But God’s voice cuts in quick as a breeze and says

“I’m not asking you to.

I’m asking you to close your eyes and hold out your hand.”

Well I mull that one over a bit, struck in the way I’m always struck

By something obvious that didn’t come from me

I think of the kid who saw me the other day

Take one singular kind of candy from the pile, and came up after,

Saying the same as God said now

And I—feeling risky, since it’s a kid here mind you—

Did as he asked only to have

Six more of the same candies dropped in my hand

Carefully sorted out from the other kinds just for me

And just because.

I think

That could’ve been a frog

That was from a boy

And this

This is God

I don’t think God will hand me any frogs

He’s not the sort of person that likes cruel jokes

He just wants the good to be a surprise

Maybe it’s more fun

So

I sit there

And I close my eyes and

I hold out my hand

Leaving off the grasping and clutching at my stomach and holding in of the sobs

Yes God, I say

Like my mother taught me to

Some two thousand odd years ago

And in my palm sits—the sunshine—warm as my mother’s smile

Warm as a promise and a hope

And the breeze dances inside it like presence in a cup

Whispering a story a story a story

Fun and brave and bold and real real real

God says: “it will be full.”

Like “it will satisfy.”

Like “it will not only take off the hunger but let me sit back kicking my feet up sighing

Without having been killed before the quenching

By the food hitting my empty stomach and my body having forgotten what to do with it.”

He says “it will be full of love.”

Love everywhere

What a thought

And after sitting there soaking the warmth all into my palm at that

All of the sudden God drops in it

A rock.

It’s a steady one, pressing firm against my palm

Like a foundation

Like it’s been there before when I needed something

I think

This is something to hold me upright

I think—a rock is also good for hucking at giants

Should the occasion merit

I think

He built a whole living body out of a rock once.

And I look at the rock and I look at him and I look at the rock

And I can’t help it

I startle myself

And burst out laughing

And then I’m crying and then

I’m laughing again

And I’m pretty sure God is sitting beside me slapping his knee and wiping his eye

And he’s saying this is just the start,

Wait till I see the other circumstances he’s got cooked up

So richly layered and with such good result

They can’t help but be a kind of punchline in the end

That I don’t even have to brace for

They’ll just hit me and I’ll fall over

Laughing

So you bet

Here I am God

Eyes closed and holding out my hands

For whatever you’ve concocted

Here I am after death and hungry

So were you.

Let’s eat.

But God whatever you do

I don’t want to eat a single meal without you.

Please save me a seat.

I stand up

And just then get a message

‘Come home’ it says.