Sacred Books

 

River in the Catskills by Thomas Cole (1843)

 
Before I met God, I read the spirit
in trees and ground, sea and sand, birds, cats,
and hallowed places like churches and groves.
 
More curious, I opened weighty books:
Torah and Bible, Quran and Vedas,
prayer books, hymnals, and books of scholars.
 
Still yearning, I turned to biography,
novels, and drama where people faced challenges,
faltered and changed in moving stories.
 
Here I felt invited back to real life,
where actions reveal God and poetry.
Of books that fed my spirit, one stands out:
 
"The Color Purple" by Alice Walker.
 “You have to git man off your eyeball,
before you can see anything a'tall."
 
Shug tells Celie: 
”My first step from the old white man was trees.
Then air. Then birds. Then other people. But
one day when I was sitting quiet and feeling
like a motherless child, which I was,
it come to me: that feeling of being part of everything,
not separate at all. I knew that if I cut a tree,
my arm would bleed. . . ."
 
This author took me full circle back to
the wild times of childhood, hours sandwiched
between daily chores and obligations.
 
I met God in the landscape and water,
sky, and wildlife.  I met God in people,
in their struggles and coping and outcomes.
 
Sacred books can make the invisible 
visible.  They contain truths that have a

potential to reveal and enhance life.

For Sumana's prompt ''Books / Reading" at What's Going On?

My blog poems are rough drafts.

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© 2024 Susan L. Chast