Reverie

Michael McQuillan

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Photo by Vovik Mar on Adobe Stock

Reverie

1.

Serenity before dawn's waking human world disrupts pristine Creation. I and my companion share psalms we read aloud, a sacred veil ensuring inner peace. With opened hearts we rise as sparks in spans of history and time to heed the conscience call

In group pursuits of justice that resonate as ripples changing something for the better once we’ve seeded stony fields with hope.

2.

Morsel seeking sparrows skitter on a sidewalk showcase that a frosted pane reveals.

Crinkled leaves that fall from breeze-bent boughs alight among the birds to bless them to pursue their day without demands of us, we who seek much from one another amid discordant social sounds.

The tangible, ephemeral, impossible incite active human minds in glory dreams, designed to enlarge ourselves in others’ eyes as psychic band aids stuck across our wounded souls.

3.

No one skates unscathed through life, yet nature in its cycled seasons offers insights overlooked:

The humility of sparrows lingering near leaves. Rejoicings among rescue dogs who chance to meet in streets.

Such traits would serve us well, matching words with actions, approaching what our species seeks.

4.

Plaques in closets show respect for my career. But have I met the sparrow’s standard as a man of grace?

I lift chocolate-colored French Roast coffee to thin lips chapped with age, trusting I’ll be ready should God call in mystic night

When from weathered maple desk I’d rise with angel’s wings appearing as I flow through ceilings, reaching sky.

5.

At that incandescent moment I will breathe in boundless space till portals as phenomena of fantasy disperse  who and what I am.

There cleaved heart exudes compassion. Nostalgia, ego fade. Memory dissolves.

6.

The One who is Eternal shapes me as if clay to surf within a light shaft creasing cobalt skies till, I land among the sidewalk sparrows.

Yes, there I’ll cast my lot as one among them, God’s avatar beneath a waking stranger staring through another frosted pane.

About the Author

Michael McQuillan

Michael McQuillan, a Massachusetts social justice writer, is a thirty-year Jewish convert. Experience as a US Senate legislative aide and Peace Corps Volunteer honored by the ADL’s “A World of Difference” diversity program and the Brooklyn Council of Churches, as the Brooklyn Borough President’s race and ethnic relations adviser coordinating the Crown Heights Coalition and chairing the NYPD Training Advisory Council’s Race Subcommittee in the aftermath of the Eric Garner killing inform his perspectives. Working as a volunteer, Mike hosted and produced public radio WFUV-FM’s Unity Forum. He served in the CHIPS Food Pantry, joined in post-Hurricane Katrina flood rebuilding in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, researched the Sandinista Literacy Campaign in Nicaragua, and was a founding member of the Hope in the Cities National Network. Leaders High School’s inaugural Lifetime Core Values Award marked his retirement from nineteen years of teaching history in Brooklyn. The Write Launch, The Ravens Perch, The History News Network, Harlem World Magazine, Tikkun, The Insider, The Chronicle of Philanthropy of North Carolina and The Covid Rebels 21 Poets Anthology have published his poems, reporting and Creative Nonfiction.