the back burner

waiting room living

not how nor why but when,
when shall this tabernacle be renewed?
the question rises like smoke from sputtering wicks,
rustling in the stillness like billowing tents
engaged by desert wind, inaptly tied to
loose stakes in a sandy soil.
i care not much for how and little more for why,
but when consumes my days
and leaves them, scattered husks
along the corridors of my brief tenure here.
oh Lord, your second advent tarries,
a day when these branch offices
and day clerks of your Holy Spirit
shall meet the corporate whole in a tent
pitched by yourself and not by men.