Hearing Voices

When Saul of Tarsus lost his sight
Along the hot Damascus road
And heard the resurrected Christ
Cry out his name, Saul, Saul, why do
You persecute me?
                            And Saul replied,
“Lord, who are you?”
                            while in his head
Manic voices must have cried
Till Ananias in his dream
Heard Jesus order him to lay
His hands upon their enemy
So that the Holy Spirit might
Restore their adversary’s sight—
Then baptized Saul, as emissary.

And yet, according to the laws
Of physics, reason disallows
Such miracles, rejecting faith,
Mocking the notion that a wraith
Called Ananias in a dream
To break the bonds of time and space
While leading him to the right place
Where the voices would be found.

As I learned at the age of twenty
A continent away from home,
Smitten by love, but out of money,
I wondered whether to return
To Maryland with the girl I loved
Or make the journey all alone.
Then in a flash much like the one
That struck Saul, an epiphany
Filled me with light; time crystalized;
My heart swelled as I called her name,
Less from my larynx than my soul,
Then went to sleep. When morning came,
I hitchhiked till I reached her home.
With pallid face, her first words were
“The strangest thing occurred last night:
I heard your voice call out my name
And nearly leapt out of my bed,”
Which gave us both a sudden fright,
Discovering how, from head to head,
Our words bounced as from satellites
As Ananias and Saul’s had,
And like those saints, we saw the light.
Two months later, we were wed.

God chose the things the world calls folly
To shame the wise, who mock the holy.
And yet, like Paul, we know Christ finds us,
And by his love, like wedlock, binds us.