God's Bathrobe

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the LORD sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple.  ²Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew.  ³And one called to another and said:

                  "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;

                  the whole earth is full of his glory."

- Isaiah 6:1-3

God sat Sunday in her Adirondack deck chair

reading the New York Times and sipping strawberry lemonade

her pink robe flowing down to the ground

the garment hem was fluff and frill

and it spilled holiness down into the sanctuary

into the cup and the nostrils of the singing people

one thread trickled loveliness into a funeral rite

as the mourners looked in the face of death

and heard the story of a life truer than goodness

a torn piece of the robe’s edge flopped onto

a war in southern Sudan and caused heartbeats

to skip and soldiers looked into themselves deeply

one threadbare strand of the divine belt

almost knocked over a polar bear floating

on a loose berg in the warming sea

one silky string wove its way through Jesus’ cross

and tied itself to desert-parched immigrants with swollen tongues

and a woman with ovarian cancer and two young sons

you won’t believe this, but a single hair-thin fiber

floated onto the yacht of a rich man and he gasped

when he saw everything as it really was

the hem fell to and fro across the universe

filling space and time and gaps between the sub-atomic world

with the effervescent presence of the one who is the is

and even in the slight space between lovers in bed

the holiness flows and wakes up the body

to feel beyond the feeling and know beyond the knowing

and even as we monotheize and trinitize

and speculate and doubt even our doubting

the threads of holiness trickle into our lives

and the seraphim keep singing "holy, holy, holy"

and flapping their wings like baby birds

and God says: give it a rest a while

and God takes another sip of her summertime drink

and smiles at the way you are reading this filament now

and hums: It’s a good day to be God