Breakfast at Epiphanies

We are out of Dodge
And as usual
Away from home
Breakfast brings epiphanies
(And bad puns)
I’m hunting back ways
To get to places
Thrilling to the
Proximal anticipatory
Goal responses involved

Epiphany means what you want
From the coming of a savior
To the dawning of a new day
It’s the hardest-working word
In the show-‘em business

No matter the meaning you choose
It’s a quick change for the better
I have had my share
What did I go from and to?
A man without a child to a man with one
After being a man without a wife
To one with
Before that, a man knowing truth
To a man seeking it daily
And before that, from a normal child
To a boy scared straight by hell

Epiphanies have prerequisites
You have to be ready
Special events are selected
From among the ordinary

Everything can mean everything
But it can mean nothing too
In discussing a trip there
Our daughter said
We may not find much to do
In Alaska
To which I replied…
We can do nothing anywhere
Just as some people
can do anything
In the middle of nowhere

The same logic works
With epiphanies
One can come from a tiny thought
Or you may not receive one
Though Jesus, Buddha and Confucius
Ride in on three horses

We’ve missed a lot of epiphanies
Some by no more than a whisker
Some by a country mile

But if you had them often
It would soon be
Comme ci comme ca

The person with a daily awakening
Pretty soon earns her sleep

Give me a rejuvenation
Ever six-to-twelve years
And I’m good
Spread ‘em around
I say

I’ve had a few
March 10, 1961 - my brother was born
September 24th the same year
As a four-year old I was reborn
at a Baptist Church in SC
I had another in ’66
Called to preach at ten
in Goldsboro, NC
And thus was a man of the cloth
before I was a man

Looking back I see
Profound is in ones own eye
Important things happened
I was too busy to miss
Malcolm X was killed
Dylan went electric
My future father-in-law
Died rebuilding a generator

I have had my last
Of the great upheavals
Now I wrap my mental
Arms around a few people
Nearly to the point of
Suffocating them
Spending silent time
With these people on these days
Instead of thinking of eternity

Awakenings (epiphanies?)
Are now mere transition…
One comes into my life
Another heads for the door
A day has a bright hue
Night fades it to black

The extended internships
I’ve had with teachers
And those of the ones
I’ve taught
Were not to last
Gravity has limits

I know the ones near now
My beautiful worms
Will soon be
Colorful butterflies
Ephemeral as they are
Delicate
Trapped at one time
Free the next
Gone forever

My rebellion against my father
Was permanent
As was his against his mother
And who knows
Who she left crying
Or they before her

Why do we revolt
Against received wisdom?
Dad confronting a burning hell
His mother deploring the concept
Me believing
The hell we get
Is gained by ignoring
The nowness of now
Too much in fear
To feel tingles of happiness

What will your wisdom be?
It may not come from escape
Or be related to hell
Excite like heaven
It may be transcendence
Or burrowing deeper
Running from something
Or headlong to another

With your epiphanies
May you resolve
What it means to be alive
On this revolving station
In this unfolding time