“Just sit there right now.
Don’t do a thing. Just rest.
For your separation from God
is the hardest work in this world.”
–Shams-ud-din Muhammad Hafiz (1320-1389)

Sounds awfully pious like a preacher
bent on getting our lapsed hides back
into synagogues, mosques and churches.
Yet that sainted excommunicate Jew
Bennie Spinoza, grinding his lenses
in The Hague, found God everywhere
as did Persian poet Hafiz and Catholic Aquinas,
who thought getting separated from the divine
impossible or at least a very hard chore
especially if you don’t block nature from
seeping into your soul, aware or distracted.

Today a soft Georgia fog rose from the Oconee
gently spread over oaks, dogwood, sweet gum
over scampering squirrels and my garden
bench to tap on my chest for re-entry.
This is an old man’s fog less rushed and
insistent than its cousin that streamed over
the San Francisco Bay in my youth, cascading
through hills and hurrying by me to
push inland for new ventures and dreams.

Just then three clean-cut young Mormons in dark ties
and short-sleeve white shirts interrupted my musings
to tell me about the splendor of the latter days.
I offered them a vaguer mist as maybe godly
though bright with doubt, when they were ready.

Later I explained all this to cat Max who
mumbled assent, but wondered where he could buy
Spinoza’s glasses, so I reminded him of his built-ins.