Ringing the Last Bell

Ringing the Last Bell

7:00 am: Breakfast

and the clouds have come down

to hide Johnson's Mesa

Someone's stolen it! Vance

used to say…

and I'm almost alone on the wet planks

of the deck, except for five

or six half-conscious campers

puffy-eyed, their heads

already gone, hearts left standing

at the trailhead marked home

Counselors are conjuring

smiles, as they place each foot

closer to the hilltop

and the last meal;

it's safer that way—

a trickle can open a crack

in the dam enough to float two charter buses

and a 15 passenger church van through

This bell is clear, piercing

and unrelenting, my hand pulling

the rope I'm at the end of—

my ears ringing long after

the last swing of the clacker

There are these things that come

to shake us out of sleep

and make us rise;

vague dreams melting with the light

into real faces gathered in circles:

meals, campfires, prayers,

meetings, devotionals—

not geometry only—but hearts that curve and bend

to accommodate each other,

and my hand is on the rope

that calls me—calls us

both together and apart

but it's not my hand

that pulls the hours down into

minutes and seconds

or spins the seasons into months

or gives us only time enough

and not too much…

not too much…

so that lessons come

in gulps we can handle,

sweet like the spring

on Elk mountain—

pure and rare!

It's God who has stolen Johnson's Mesa

this morning and placed this cloud

over our heads, pelted

the mountains with rain,

confiscated our schedule

distracted our campers

turned our sermons inside-out

so His Word at the heart

is louder than ours…

Like a prankster,

He's foiled our plans.

Thank God, as the last bell rings

because He doesn't care

that it's the last bell

that it's time for camp to end

that we all have other things to do

and places to go…

God is that first year camper

who doesn't understand endings

who will refuse

to let us leave

who will not say

goodbye, see you next year!

He is clutching His journal,

His canteen, His lanyard,

His hands dirty

from playing with us…

Look at his eyes;

God won't let us go our separate

ways

just because some dumb old director rang the

bell.