Some questions

I have several ideas sitting around in my notes app and on paper. These are not those. For today, I just want to lay out some questions I've been pondering.

Charred Charade

Nobody talks about the first person to see the burning bush — like, once Moses left the scene. They don’t talk about the charred grasses, the ash spread across the cave or open field or wherever the fuck the Lord decided to set a part of creation on fire.

“I am the great I am,” said the burning bush, hours before it would be nothing, on its way to persuading a random man to start a revolution or whatever.

It’s a crazy story. Possibly clinical. On my walk this afternoon, I passed a previously burning bush, its singe marks covering the sidewalk. Did God appear to someone using that age-old charade? Last night, was some stranger taking their evening stroll when the Lord appeared to them on the sidewalk, alongside the drag race finals with their 2 am start time? And what did the Lord say from the burning bush? “I am the great I am”? For all that is good and holy, please come up with something more creative to say.

On the off chance that the Lord did not, in fact, set the bush on fire last night, what would be the meaning behind the flames? Was someone trying to stay warm in the freezing night or did they want to destroy this city, block by block? Or was it just an accident? How is it that you can tell me the burning bush doesn’t mean anything?

I guess, sometimes, things just burn.

---

Cats

If they were to tell you 
that this is all it would be,
would you believe them?
                           No, really?
Would you look them in the eyes,
see their earnest faces
and accept that fate?

Or would you come
To me? Ask what I think
about the suggestion that
Yep, this is it, just the sitting 
and the watching and the wait—
was that a cat that just
leapt past the corner of my eye?

And I would say, yes, in fact
this is all it would and will be. 
Just the sand between your toes,
the soft silty soil in your fingernails,
planting with grandma near the bougainvillea,
the running to the shed to find
the dusty, spider-webbed tricycle. 

This is all it will be, the sitting
in darkness, letting the infinity consume
you. Letting yourself drown until you hear 
                                the softest complaint. 
The cats playing hide-and-seek,
and the one who is not “it” yells. 
The darkness interrupted by the game.