St. Silouan the Athonite

by Luke Taylor Gilstrap

My soul yearns after Thee and cannot find Thee...

Thou wast pleased to give my Thy grace,

 and again Thou was pleased to take it from me.

Lowell is right; why not say

what happened? My son was sick

and throwing up through the night.

I lit a candle for him, my wife trying

to sleep on the couch, the space left

for me: the floor. In the wavering flame

the hardwood was cool as August desks

were, growing up, before the school

had air conditioning, and the floor

went wet with my tears. I can't explain this,

the rest so close to cliche. Maybe

the late hours made it possible.

God came in silence and I wept

in silence until my wife asked me

why I couldn't get off the floor.

I have gone there so many nights

since, wanting that night again.

St. Silouan, where in your body

did you use to house the Holy Spirit?

Did you feel the same covering, inside

and out, a fulness so indiscernible

from your body as is it made you wonder

where you'd been all this time?

And when grace left and your mind

went dark, who left--you or Him?

Why is your chapter "On Grace"

only about it leaving? Like Thomas,

put my thumb in your wounds.

I want to know what happened.

I'm asking you as a friend

who knows what I am unable to say.

How long do I have to wait now?

And will you wait beside me?

---

Luke Taylor Gilstrap lives in Wichita, Kansas, with his wife and two sons. He has received his MFA from Seattle Pacific University, and his poems have appeared in Spiritus, Relief, and Ekstasis, among others. After teaching as Professor of English at Hesston College, now he writes for the national prison ministry of the Orthodox Church.