I am
The curator
Of your infinite beauty
Privy to collections timeless
And in real time
Streaming glorious tributaries
To the art of who you are

This is a poem about the glorious privilege in close relationships of having unique access to the beauty of another, particularly a lover.  Inspired by my muse and sweetheart, such beauty is an unending — as in head over heels — source of teeming enthrallment.  I genuflect at the mass of wondrous moments and shared memories.  Mere reminiscence of our first kiss is lost in the wake of our most recent kiss.  Every new kiss shatters the inadequacy of my imagination with the surpassing reality of beauty ever anew.  In the face of such beauty, my poetry pales.  The irresistible invitation to shut up and kiss me blissfully wins the day, holy inseparable.  Only when apart is my poetry birthed, orphaned of such beauty, hankering for those unrivaled tears of joy.

This poem, while a testament to the beauty of human love, offers a parallel connection to an even more holy love. As so aptly stated by Victor Hugo in Les Miserables: “To love another person is to see the face of God.”  This should surprise no one who sees God as love.  God revels in your infinite beauty, even if others may not witness it.  You are an ongoing work of art only adequately appreciated when one subject experiences another subject, not merely for what they do or look like, but who they are, both a work and source of ineffable art and artistry.

In my poems, I frequently use “I am” in a single line.  This is meant to allude to God, “I AM.”  In Exodus 3:14, Moses is instructed to tell his fellow Israelites from whom he is sent: “I AM.”  The long version, “I AM WHO I AM,” speaks to the sovereign character of God.  To the less discerning this may simply appear akin to Popeye declaring “I am what I am,” or Forrest Gump simply affirming, “Stupid is as stupid does.”  However, in the pedagogy of God, such tautologies are unhelpful.  Whatever Popeye is, is what he is.  On the face of it, what stupid is, is what stupid does.  Still, whatever I might do, or however I may appear to you, does not fully define who I am.  Your unduplicated set of personal thoughts and feelings, hopes and desires, experiences and perspectives, confound explication and formulation.  And, as for you, as for God (or vice versa).  You, as an authentic subject, are not fully experienced if only related to as a thing that looks a certain way and behaves in a certain way. The sacredness of being beloved is not the same as merely being witnessed or even appreciated for what one is or how one behaves.  The sacredness of being beloved encompasses a reverence for our ongoing artistry, the chosen project of our unreplicable life, what ever that may be.  This reflects the love a parent has for a child, regardless of what they happen to be at any given moment, or how they behave.  This reflects the love one has for their beloved, seeking their beloved’s best, even when it may be in parent conflict with what is best for them.  Similarly, God, as an authentic subject, is not fully experienced simply by examining, however closely, creation, and what the universe looks like or how it behaves.  Such data sets, however extensive, and formulations, however complete, cannot capture the living God; just as you are not defined only by how you look to others and how your behaviors are perceived.  Two subjects meeting, experiencing one another: this is the stuff of gods and goddesses, where new worlds are created.  Theologians, philosophers, and even scientists, talk about God, but this has little resemblance to experience looking God in the I.  And if this peers inaccessible, find a good lover, have a child, maybe both.  You assuredly will be surprised!