To manifest and manifest

To be open to receive the spirit.
Easily said: just writing down these words.
But it may not come as we would have it
in some Byzantine icon of the Christ,
Buddha rotund in my neighbor's yard,
a thousand Muslim men salaamed in prayer.
It may have to appear in ugliness.
Today out of a sky black, cold and hard
as onyx I still had the vision come.
It was the bird we all call tomorrow.
You know the one: you saw it as a child.
It came to you the first dawn you saw light
and found the word for it: the huge not-you.
You stood up in your crib. It spoke to you.