Waiting for Waiting’s End

The chancy countdown clock of my mortality is ticking toward some unknown preset alarm. I’m aware of every taciturn tick tock in unrecoverable moments spent waiting for something to happen… and I do not wait well. I wait for stiff slices of tanned toast to pop up. I wait for the microwave’s proclamatory ping. I wait for endless dreary drizzle to stop. I wait for supplemental shoes to drop. I wait for stern scarlet stoplights to glow green. I wait for stalled responses to emailed queries. I wait for weighty debts to be repaid. I wait for market losses to regain. I wait for unsure recovery from illness. I wait for a time and place of serene stillness. I wait to watch news that makes me feel happy… instead of sadly numb from unrelenting horror. I wait for a time when love and peace… are not hammered by hate and violence. I wait for our warming forests to stop catching fire. I wait for AI to prove its promise rather than peril. I wait for a clogged Congress to civilly meet in the middle. I wait for common sense and facts to regain a following. I wait for a time when cynicism concedes to optimism. I wait for the long dark night of our collective souls to end. I wait for the culmination of all things, large and small. I wait for a time when all our waiting concludes. I wait for anticipatory hope of Advent and Eschaton to authentically, faithfully, finally, feel real to me. But I’m mired in my own limited perception. I need another perspective for waiting well. I recall my life spans just an eye-blink slice within deep, astronomical, cosmic time. From the Big Bang to the Bethlehem star over thirteen billion years passed by, a very long Advent time indeed. God must be very good at waiting. (First published in Valiant Scribe Literary Journal (Issue V, Winter 2024) 46-47. See also my poems “Star of Wondering” and “Bringing Heaven to Earth.”)