What is the Kingdom of Heaven like?
To what may it be compared?
The Kingdom is a difficult knot
That may not be undone:
At one end of the rope is your ship
Straining to run with the tide;
At the other end is a stubborn anchor
Caught fast on a hidden reef.
Again, the Kingdom is a winding path
That doubles back onto itself.
At the crossroads you become confused
And travel the same way repeatedly.
The fifth time over a familiar stretch
You cry out to the heavens in frustration.
The Kingdom is also a strong headwind
Pushing against your oars at dusk
As you struggle homeward with a heavy catch
That will rot, as you missed the market.
More, the Kingdom is a confusing psalm,
Equal parts confession and calumny.
Or, if you like, the Kingdom of Heaven
Is a thing I cannot understand,
A patently obvious and noble truth
That hides in the reeds at water’s edge,
A hungry nesting hatchling whose cries I hear
But whose beak I only glimpse at feeding time.
I nod, and I say, “Yes. I see the bird.”
I do not, and am ashamed of the truth.
Peter privately questions the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven after scratching his head over several of Jesus’ parables. He’s embarrassed about not “getting it.” See Matthew 13. (Yes, this is an extrapolation. But think about it. The disciples all said they understood… but their behavior indicated they did not. So either they really thought they understood and didn’t, or they said they understood and didn’t. Based on my own experience, I surmise the latter. And since this is my poem, I can do that.)