He came to himself    Luke 15:17

Jesus understood how a boy can take leave

of himself – the soul drifting, propelled

darkly along a descending string of poor choices

but there can also be a coming home, as abrupt

as Dorothy clicking her heals.  Like David the king,

who heard the words, “You are the man,” and folded

up like a canvas tent, or Peter, startled to his bones

by a rooster. Queen Esther was drowning in fear when 

asked if it wasn’t “for just such a time as this,” she had risen

in the kingdom – that was all she required, to say, \

like Mary,  “Let it be unto me;” (the prospect of birth

or death each inviting consummate resignation).

Isaiah knew this better than any. “Here I am, Lord,”

he said and walked the streets of Jerusalem

as naked and unprepossessing as Adam before

the train wreck.  Like my dog, beholding

herself for the first time in the mirror.