Ascension Day: a poem

Yesterday was the Feast of the Ascension, so this is late. I guess it is still May 30th in California and points West (up to the International Date Line) though:

ASCENSION DAY

Ascension Day. A helpful article explains

It was not up, up, up  like Apollo

But in a cloud of unknowing. It marks

High summer, long days at this latitude.

Any explanation somehow strains

Considering what it has to follow;

The resurrection, when humanity embarks

On a new course. Our attitude,

Believe what we will, no longer remains

What it was; even doubt is no longer hollow,

But encloses a specific moment that sparks

Through time since, a reason for gratitude.

Back to the Ascension. Lifted out

Of the human round. A culmination –

If the story was just about

One time, one place, one nation –

It was not so. There is an After.

Still to come, Acts; the illumination

Of Pentecost. Plenty of exalted disaster.

Plenty of human error, the fall of Saul.

The realisation we can have but one Master,

Hard earned as this knowledge is for us all.

Ascension is a beginning, like all ends,

In that cloud there is the call,

To follow our path wherever it sends.