Years of Silence

So there are all these years and years of silence between
the time young Jesus taught the learned doctors of theology
in the temple while his parents fretted his absence

                                                And

the public inauguration of his all too short career

as a rabbi by baptism in the swollen waters of the
Jordan River by his favored cousin, John.

Did the child Messiah spend those so-called
“missing years” sculpting animated pigeons from clay
and travelling through the exotic mountains of Tibet?

Did he experience those years and years of silence
as a painful separation from God?
Was he like the rest of us, waiting and waiting to hear from Him?

The beatified Mother Theresa complained of God’s persistent absence
and St. John of the Cross of the long dark night of the soul.
Even the psalmist after God’s own heart begged God to answer him.

(2007)