Ellen Porter
1/08/08
What Is It You Seek?

All my life
I meant to seek the Beloved
and undirected I searched in odd
and unlikely places.

As adolescent,
I was drawn toward love
and mistook lust for charity.
Lust with a boy’s hand
on my breast and my
hand on his eagerness.
But I did not find God.

And as an older adult,
I urged myself toward
union with the Friend
kissing and caressing
those who,
while satisfying my lust,
never brought me to the vision of Her face.

And now,
celibate in a monastery,
I need only hold quiet
doing nothing but contemplation
hearing the echo of God’s footfall,
seeing the shadow of Her great body
slipping a hair’s breadth away.