Library Carrel

Originally published in Soul by Southwest, a journal published by Seminary of the Southwest's Center for Writing and Creative Expression in the Spring of 2016.

Mustard yellow chair,
cold metal desk,
and a name tag label.

Means that are
more ordinary
than could have
been foreseen.

Ordinary in that
they are simple:
wood, metal, cloth, paper.

I too am simple:
bone and blood and flesh.

Yet, here I sit
or stand
or kneel
and see most
extraordinary things.

I don't know
if I am fleeing
or entering
a desert.

But there has been
manna before.
And surely
there will be again.

Water from the rocks
flows through this place,
and we are invited to drink.

We seek the complicated,
the revelation,
the decorated epiphany.

But some days
these things will be
in the form of

mustard yellow,
cold metal,
and a name tag.