Monday's Poem

© Robert Filgate

Lonely Places

But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
Luke 5:16

The sound of a train whistle in the distance—it is
this place we must learn to go. This is the rhythm
of the rhythm of the sun and the moon and the stars.
It is lonely places where we learn to understand
the dark corners of the heart; and so we must go.
This is where we teach the heart to listen. We could
walk to the edge of this planet, to the edge of our
senses and never understand the heart. In lonely
places we begin to understand. They scare us
because the truth is raw and uncut, it is there that we
meet the all consuming fire. Lonely places find us
when we are least expecting. They take our breath
away, again and again, and sometimes we wonder if
they really exist, or if we dreamed them one sleepless night.
And so we must go and our hearts will burn within us, again.