From Here to Eternity

By Alan Altany

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From my computer and desk
in this white-walled home office
with Grunewald’s “Crucifixion”
and “Resurrection” on one wall,
an icon of Christ, crucifix, and
photos of my kids and dog
on another, this is my place
to launch voyages in the geography
of time, space, and even eternity.

This is the hinterland for my work
in writing poems about God and ants,
sloth and saints, melancholy & mysticism,
wherever my mind and imagination
take me through time and into the breach
of eternity’s saturation of the finite; 
this is my satellite orbiting earth,
my mountaintop monastery, my
daily pilgrimage of going nowhere.

From this solitary place come visions,
for “your cell will teach you everything”;
silence and strokes on the keyboard,
soulfulness and simple love are here
for creating a godly-driven experiment
of emptying my petulant ego-drama,
a place of gritty and painful grace
under a spinning, overhead fan,
as I leap & plow into mysteries

where here and eternity are one. 

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Alan Altany, Ph.D., is a septuagenarian college professor of religious studies. He’s been a factory worker, swineherd on a farm, hotel clerk, lawn maintenance worker, small magazine of poetry editor, director of religious education for churches, truck driver, novelist, etc. He published a book of poetry in 2022 entitled A Beautiful Absurdity: Christian Poetry of the Sacred. His website is at https://www.alanaltany.com/.  

Alan's previous work on Foreshadow:
The Seven Deadlies (Poetry, October 2022)
Grunewald's Crucifixion (Poetry, September 2022)
Habit of Being Wise (Poetry, October 2022)