Truant

Truant

Karen Rettig

No gesture of impatience.
No tapping of the foot.
No shadow of annoyance
that I once again have let
some fascination charm me
so that I am once more late,
got caught up in distractions
and again have made You wait.

You let me battle dragons,
banish menace from the land,
redress the world’s injustices
with my own nimble hands,
pursue the ends of rainbows,
show adversity the door,
embark on lofty ventures,
wrestle evil to the floor.

And when I finally notice
that no dragons have been slain,
that my crusades have rid the world
of neither grief nor pain,
discover that I’m weary
and have nothing more to say,
that, though diversions beckon,
I no longer want to play.

Then I perceive You waiting,
though I don’t know why You should.
The world has never led me
to anticipate a God
who’d greet me with such sympathy,
forbearance with delay,
or such a cordial welcome
when I’ve been so far away.

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Karen Rettig
Poet & Writer

Karen is the author of Finding God: Our Quest for a Deity and the Dragons We Meet On the Way

Photography by Alexander Briere