Soul Athletes

Strength, yes, the sweet pain of muscles
laboring willing under a load at near capacity
or the ease of gazelle-fleet sprinters
burning blood to deoxygenated darkness—

how do you get there? Practice.
Every day take up the beads and kneel,
sweat, dance to the music of the Name,
wrestle yourself into exhaustion.

An oak-beamed soul bears up mountains,
grows hummingbird-quick in perception
and response, swims leagues over rough oceans,
climbs airless Himalayas on the Moon

after years of daily exercise, grown to the stature
of the mad soul athletes we call saints.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside