catapult magazine

This Wilderness We Are

by Alex Joyner

Jesus died at 33
An incomplete incarnation if you ask me
What Would Jesus Do with what comes next?

No one has a clue what it’s like
    to be a man at mid-life,
    least of all those of us who are one
The world wants strength and stability
    of its seasoned men
    while they are beginning to know
    the truth: that such things are illusions

Identity,
    which once seemed secured,
    now slips silently
    away
Potency,
    behind all its shades,
    from the bedroom to the board,
    seems a struggle to sustain
Women
    once again become the blessed mystery they were
    when we pursued them like our lives depended on them

Who is this man with random hairs who stares at me from the mirror?
Who is this man who watches his wife and his children go boldly forth
    with only a sidelong glance to catch his eye?
Who is this man on whom the world leans
    as if he were a concrete pillar?
    As if!

They do not need nor want a man who needs and wants
    (Such things must not be spoken;
    the man who speaks them must be mad)

God only knows who a man is at mid-life.
And so it is an act of faith to trust
    that at the end we will know
    the shape and substance of this wilderness we are
    this wonder that we are