What Does Love Encompass?

So often-- really anytime someone asks what I study--
I am asked how or why I can believe in God.

But I tell you,
God is nearer to me than my right hand.

The reality of God transcends
whatever I may discover about any religion--
religion is so inadequate a tool
in understanding the divine,
yet I see splendor in it still...
there is beauty in the seeking,
whatever form it takes.

Many people, I think,
have God and just don't realize it.
They tell me everyday that God does not exist,
but I think they are just confused on the definition.

Why do we confine God so?
It may be helpful to expand our notion--
what does love encompass?  

Though I may be confused about my own religion,
I am no good without God.
God is nearer to me than my right hand,
will never let me go.  

The Past in Present Tense

History may not repeat itself ad infinitum,
but people surely do.

No one is new under the sun,
there is a you, a they, a she, a him
and multiples beside them.

The longer I live, the more people look like people who've hurt me...
but thankfully, too,
I'm seeing friends in new bodies.

There used to be a now and only now,
a you and only you--
but now that I'm older, I think about later,
and no one seems too far away
(You'll be coming around again).

When My Days Have Finished Dawning

Some previous poems may have indicated a paradoxical fear of both death and life, but the way that I have recently come to terms with it is to remember my own infinity:

       I have been around
  f  o  r  e  v  e  r.

             I am in the earth,
the heavens,
            every smile.

              why fear dying so much
if so much

            of me
                           will still be
around
         when my body goes?

The world and I...
        we go
                    w   a   y   back.

"death," you call it,
     will only bring me
d
e
e
p
e
r
      into her soil.

I have asked the pregnant moon to
     keep having God's lovechildren

and the sun to keep watch
       over them...

                           and you.

I have asked the birds to warn of any
    t
     r
      o
       u
         b
           l
            e

and for everyone to keep
       learning and trying
to
    fly.

They all said
       YES.

                   See?
The world will be just fine without me.

                Life is not g o i n g anywhere.

I love this world and I don't want to                      leave                 it,
    but its existence won't depend on my perceiving it!

                 Lovely      and      new
each
morning,
                 dawn will dawn

and the sun will wake on time and
       get to her post in the sky...

  I know this for a

f
a
c
t.

     She promised me.