God's Knees Poem by Alla Bozarth

Sometimes I feel like a little kid
lost in the department store or circus, and
desperately trying to find God’s knees.
All I can see is a confusing kaleidoscope
of hodgepodge colors, people’s pant legs
or skirt hems and shoes and bare skin.
They all look like they’re lost, too.
Then I feel a tug on my arm.
In my desperation I forgot that
Someone was holding my hand.
I look up and see my little hand
tucked into a large and well-worn hand,
a rough worker’s hand, competent and strong,
but gentle too, and smooth where it holds onto mine.
I follow that big hand up a huge, muscular arm,
all the way to its shoulders, and there I see this
amazing face, old and young at the same time,
rough and smooth and pink and brown with all
the rainbow dancing around from the light
that comes out of nowhere. I don’t know
if it’s a grandmother or grandfather face.
But it’s looking at me and it smiles.
It smiles like it knows all it needs to know, and it knows me
through and through. And one of its eyes winks
at me and then the smile opens to a grin,
and the Face lifts up to move ahead and the Hand
squeezes mine, and we’re walking together,
side by side, and I don’t feel so small anymore,
even against the biggest body I’ve ever seen.
We’re walking together, and somehow
the One holding my hand lets me know
that even though I’m scared and don’t know
where I am or where we’re going, and even
if we get hurt somehow, we’re okay, and we’ll be okay.
And I’m not just being cared for and loved—
I ~tiny, lost me~ am being respected.

This poem is in the books, Diamonds in a Stony Field and
Learning to Dance in Limbo by Alla Renée Bozarth, copyright 2011.
All rights reserved.