For fifty years
Ravenna Creek
was diverted
into the underground Seattle sewer line
until a group
of concerned citizens mobilized
to restore it
to let it once again
warm up in the sun
as it traveled
from Green Lake
to the sound.
The technical term
for this
is daylighting.
I am reading the sign
that the parks department
put up, to teach me this,
it has been a long day,
I am tired
of wondering if I will ever
shine
with consistency of my own
or if I'll only ever glimmer
when someone else
points a light down
into my darkness
and there
on a stupid parks department sign
is what salvation
sounds like to me.
I am not in the mood.
This makes a great sermon
for someone else,
I can hear it already
in my best preacher voice:
"There are streams
running through you
and maybe they have been
diverted
into slimy
underground pipes
but they are still there,
still coursing through
the veins of my soul
and you can, even now
daylight them!"
I walk into the cool shadows
my hands are hot and heavy
from carrying this goddamn theophany
but my mind keeps preaching
to someone more in need of grace than me —
isn't there always someone more in need of grace than me?
"The daylighting process will take time.
There will be resistance.
Beware the mall developers
selling an easy
re-surface project
they'll pave you over
and leave you dry
there are no quick fixes
only digging —
down, up, and out
until the ground
is kissed again
wet, sloppy, and alive,
I know it's hard sometimes
to feel the currents
within us
but listen!
at the manhole covers
at the sealed up places
where you might climb down
into yourself
can't you hear the splashing
down there?"
The Ravenna Creek
is still underground
south of 55 th street.
Like me,
it is only partially
daylighted,
But I am watching the water
disappear into the darkness of the grate,
and seeing
only the possibility
of glimmering in the sun
all the way
to the sea.
Rev. Katy Shedlock co-pastors Creators' Table, a new congregation in West Central Spokane, and competed with Spokane Poetry Slam at the 2018 National Poetry Slam in Chicago. Saddle shoes are her favorite.
