The last of the poems I will publish in memory of David Walters’ life and in tribute to the power of his poetic voice, a most timely word for us in a time when we wait “for a promised dawn …”

Why doesn’t God like us?

Have you ever noticed how God deserts you
When you most need Him?
He hangs around for awhile until he’s through,
Then his bright light grows awfully dim.

God reminds me, sadly, of the sun,
Here now, made known, then gone!
Shines his spotlight, it seems, for fun,
Then makes us wait for a promised dawn.

But a patient scientist pointed out to me my error:
The sun, he said, is almost in the same place today
That it was happily playing in yesterday.
It was only the earth and we who moved! So there!

But I, from living, and the logic of each day’s sharp realities,
Remembered when living wells of faith dried up,
And sincere efforts to live and love or to be kind weren’t enough,
Haunting me with their weak and uncompleted activities.

Still, like a desperate soldier, we choose the forlorn hope,
To rush high stone walls that were laid to injure and damn!
It seemed only right then that we become the sacrificial goat.
Only, I decided instead to stand with the one who had already
          died for us as our Passover lamb.

A dear friend helped me see what we too often miss:
God, he reminded me, is always present – right now!!
          – everywhere and in each moment with all of life.
Even when ignorance blinds us so that we will not heed,
          or we are afraid even to risk!
This is the time of constancy as He walks beside us in our dark
          and loneliness, and simply, loves us.

david walters
February 2015