On the Road to Damascus

"I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," the Lord replied. "Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me."
—Acts of the Apostles 26:12-18

A broken vessel is hardly a map
Hardly anything but forgotten
and swept away.
Ah, but he is a clever potter
isn't he?
Clever indeed to crush these shards
to dust
to ashes
everlasting
water of life
stirred
Baptism by faith
remade
until I am again fired thrice
and painted
whole again useful.
A shard is hardly a map
but it is a beginning.
What was I?
A knife that cut you.
This map
a road to Damascus
traveled without knowing
the potter's plan.
I am a journey written
in skin and bones.
These scars were road stops
where others waited with me
for you.
These scars were dark nights
where alone I whispered
into the starless sky
your name.
These scars are Halleluia
Amen
and the traveling circus
whose mystery is not
the bearded lady
or the trapeeze act,
but the ever present hum
of the masses gone silent
at the miracle of Lazarus
returned from the dead.
The map whose jagged and raised
lines mar smooth white
tell you the potter
hides a message
a mission
a reason that will shine
best when broken
wide open
screaming
make me your
image again.