Openness: A Poem for Pentecost

By Burl Horniacheck

God speaks in the tongue of song and story.
He cannot be known
from harvesting the grain of thought alone.
Dance and drama show his power and glory.

You cannot escape from his presence.
The spirit’s rain
is so soaked into the pure mundane
a wave of the hand glows with hot transcendence.

He hums the tune of the unexpected.
Something new
will always be accompanying you.
You will not know ‘til it comes how his will is perfected.

God captains his boat by the winds of surprise.
You cannot say
exactly what he’ll do today.
There is no trick. We can but live with open eyes.

Burl Horniachek is a Canadian poet and translator. He grew up in Saskatchewan and Alberta and studied Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Toronto. He also studied creative writing at the University of Alberta with Derek Walcott and currently lives near Winnipeg, Manitoba. His work has appeared in Poetry East, Poetry International, Literary Imagination, TransLit, The Dark Mountain Project, and others. He is the editor of To Heaven's Rim: The Kingdom Poets Book of World Christian Poetry, Beginnings to 1800, in English Translation (Poiema Poetry Series).