Beyond The Last Program - Spiritual Version Poem by Tom Courtney

And so we step out
beyond the last program
beyond the parking spots
from the automobiles
now stacked like tiny eggs in little cartons
huddled together and locked up tight
against the cold

Passing the rough-cut
lacquered green-paint wooden signs
stepping off into the longer grasses
accompanied by the tunes of the first real crunching
of all my attitudes and preconceived notions
into powder

And on into the tall thin ravine
that nature filled so many eons ago
the fertile soil from many mountain rains
brings life up surprising us all around

And leaning against these heavy packs
so ponderous for city backs and shoulders
Our little trek into the heart of the earth
means nothing less than an extraction
from all our own creations

Now a tiny band of wanderers
stepping forward into day
this valley fools the eye
We seem to be standing still
as earth revolves beneath us
and the sun burns hotter and higher
Even as the heavens rotate
to fulfill our fantasy that we
are still the center of it all

And yet He said so
More thoughts for us than the grains of sand upon the shore
I am not alone
and never shall I be

My hands are now irrelevant
to any progress here
Reach draw scratch or fidget
pouring water from a plastic spout

Now my swinging hands
swishing the stillness of the air

Now into the deep
as deep as promise demands
These oaths we make only to ourselves
to stand on a higher place
to feel the closer presence
of God

But what brought us to where we are?
Is it not our own technology?
Broadly defined the twist
of two fine wires?
The adding of a to b?
But here it lies beyond
our understanding
Because we allow God to be
And all we see is marigolds
and the highest of high
the craggy faces
the great rocks and no more
biology

So free
Have we indeed come this far?
What was it that captured us so
in another place another time?

Baffled and wondering
We have brought ourselves to face
another eve with sun plunging toward the night
The night which bears much misunderstanding

And from beyond the tallest pine
the shadows now announce themselves
politely
arising and dancing to our tunes
They are the reflections of ourselves
emerging from our glass houses

We never could anticipate
the settling effects upon us
that our hikes through rocks and snow
and the variegations of this wondrous adventure
would create in us
that calls us to experience it
as God’s creation