Baptism

Growing up church
Christ haunted
Steeples already leaning
Like lightening towers
Impaling and protruding from my gut.

I wanted what it was hiding.
The church was surely a billboard for something.-what
Was it advertising?

Still,
my life was nearly baptized before I got here
I nearly drowned in the water of my grandmother prayers
Before I was here.

Womb waters like mercy. The womb like love of God called Mercy
Was where my contours formed, I’m sure. But I needed water
To go under something. I needed to nearly drown to know.
The tadpole me knew. That much Yet,
I was up to my neck before I realized
The Name of water, even.
Much less my own.
And then, the Jordan River. The warm sinking
Into ancient memory mineralized liquid
Where Jesus went under the first time,
And was recognized…
And, just then, my young nubile body, along with the nibbling fishes
On my knees, skin tingling in desert warmth,
Knew it was loved by something, and so bowed down under something
Bigger than buildings or languages, or the tender hand of my father
Who sent me under. More like
How a baby looks at your face
In babbling wonder when it first comes out.
Or a thousand sermons
Compressed into one haiku of you, one
You can actually listen to-a homily
Of immersion into Love’s sweet wetness…
Before you know Comfort’s kind naming
Or the great dunking, drowning yes to life.
One has to die to know their name.
We submerge to emerge in baptism.