The Calling

Someone is calling me. Sure of it. 
Someone or something. Calling.
Not to a calling. No, nothing like that,
this calling's a verb, not a noun.
Calling me, calling, but
not to a lifetime of servitude
(an industrial missionary, say),
never to something like that.
Sacrificial - that isn't what's meant.

It's a voice in a wilderness calling,
not calling by name - but by what?
It's a word in the wind that I catch,
but then in a moment is gone.
No, but almost I hear what it says.
Almost, but not quite. The words slip away.
I'm left with their shape. Their substance is gone.
It's the way that a poem might start.
Or a painting, an image of sorts,
an aside from a passing - a what? - a
something that called. Indistinct.
That caught me off guard. Out of touch.
Like a cricketer dropping a catch.
Inattention the devil to blame - unless...
could it be that the shape is enough?

Someone will ask where it came from.
What shall I say? That something  or someone,
a pick-pocket maybe (in contrary mode), 
left it, lost in my pocket, to surface one day -
me thinking it mine all along! Indistinct.
(it). Inattentive. (me). With nothing
on which I could focus. It never reveals
where it came from. All I can say
is where it was found. It's an aura,
a will-o-the-wisp, a spectre, a ghost,
a spirit, a spook, a glimmer, a trace,
a homeless something that's pleading with me
to be given a home, to be taken on board.