Delicious Ambiguity

balanced on one foot, I am teetering, breath held for the signal
like Isrealites who watched the clouds and fire
teaching their children to trust the sky Painter
Israelite teenagers rolling their eyes
aw, mom, we're moving again?
but then they see the billowing cloud,
like hands reaching, not to demand, but to invite
the fire just ahead as they kick stones
walking by their mothers' side
in the cool of the day
there must have been a rush
the first historical thrill ride
fearing the lack of control
nausious on the sharp turns
swallowing on those slow-click moments
festivals with a priest who enters with a rope tied around his ankles
leaning back with the incline
with just enough time to catch a breath
You settle in a tent, ancient camping trip
with camp stories of Exodus told around the fire
And Your just hoping to be near your kids
as they warm up under the stars.
Would I grab the cross bar of that ride, white knuckled,
eyelids closed like a fist, holding my breath and bladder
fear fetal position, head in hands, missing the view
or do I scream, laugh, and raise my arms
at even the scary parts in the story
knowing Daddy's arms are waiting
Lord, pry my hands from the bar
when all I've known and comfort zones
are left in the dust as I follow You
in the cloud and the fire
with cane-tapping trust in Your eyes to see
To find joy in these click, click teetering moments
trusting the designer of this ride
and both the warmth and danger of the fiery storyteller
Who just wants to draw us close.

"On the day the tabernacle, the Tent of the Testimony, was set up, the cloud covered it. From evening till morning the cloud above the tabernacle looked like fire. That is how it continued to be; the cloud covered it, and at night it looked like fire. Whenever the cloud lifted from above the Tent, the Israelites set out; wherever the cloud settled, the Israelites encamped." Numbers 9:15-17

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.
Delicious Ambiguity.”
― Gilda Radner

"I will lead the blind by ways they have not known,

along unfamiliar paths I will guide them;

I will turn the darkness into light before them

and make the rough places smooth.

These are the things I will do;

I will not forsake them." Isaiah 42:16