As I wrote of my deep flaws,
As I committed to the words,
You sang Flawless over my heart.
It isn’t unheard-
I want to believe in the impossible
Even when I can’t sing
Because You are still You
So there’s no such thing.
There’s nothing Your grace can’t cover.
Whenever I get especially lonely,
Wishing someone safe would hold me,
I look closely in the mirror
Seeing a million reasons to scold me
And I can’t imagine a soul
Could cross through the looking glass
To love me as
Fatally flawed as I am.
Then I’m glad to skip the rejection.
The world is threatening
To set itself on fire.
I should write a poem about that,
But I have nothing higher
To say than that God owns the day.
I believe this might be the big war,
The moment to change all lives
But whatever we need in the moment
I now know our God provides,
Every breath in the valley of the shadow of death.
And every variable is in His hand.
They fight for more of me
Than I can spread.
When I’m fully there for them
I have nothing for the work ahead.
To be with them as they need,
And have a job I keep
I have to entirely give up
On sleep.
Now that I’ve expressed
What the woman struggles to keep
What trips and traps, the slope
That slips, the downward steep-
In the relief of words spilled
I have again found
Renewed reminders:
I am duty-bound.
My children laugh in the other room
While I cook and clean and listen.
I have been given gifts in each of them,
And in the God who loves in all conditions.
I must focus where I’m needed,
Not where I feel need.
What I feel I need
Is a brother for shelter,
A shepherd to lead,
An intimate protector
For whatever comes next,
But these things may not
Exist in the flesh.
What I have been given
Beyond my foolish wishes
Is strength from heaven,
Endless loaves and fishes,
And a God who provides
Before the need.
I’m sorry.
I’m a moth to flame.
My pierced soul
Shows my shame
But it isn’t tawdry.
What I admire most in him
Are his nascent noble virtues
And the way he wrestles with them.
These flashed in his expression.
I don’t know him; what I know
Is he is young and happy
And I’m an ancient widow.
I am now deciding the timing
Must have been a sharp grace;
I felt safest and calmest
Staring into his face,
While caught up in the never
My heart has never wandered
He reminds me what I’m not-
I remind myself all I have squandered.
And what I will never be
Guarantees what I can never possess,
And the pain of more rejection is abated-
More or less.
Trying to make it all make sense
Tastes like sour grapes.
I don’t know why these things are,
But after all the scuffs and scrapes
His eyes are still a sea of calm,
And my tender soul
Is still grateful for the balm
He doesn’t know consoles.
I don’t see how
These lasting impressions
Could be for me to keep,
But they resist suppression.
I can’t imagine having
A safe soul in my inner spaces,
The forgiveness he must exude;
A soul composed of tender graces
With strength enough to survive.
Somehow my weak eyes
Chose an impossible suitor,
But despite all my tries
I can’t dethrone the ridiculous affection
That I can neither allow.
These impressions became the standard
By which I now measure all men
Whether or not I mean to measure,
Even when I don’t intend.
He’s too good for me,
And no one else is him.
Scandalous, the covert widow
In her quagmire all day,
Inadvertently sealed her heart
Before it was even free to give away.
Perhaps it was self-defense
To keep me alone,
But he was gravity from the first;
In his eyes, the cosmos shone.
I try to sacrifice it, killing it on an altar,
And I always think I’m doing well,
But then I see his face
And it all goes to hell…
With one glimpse of heaven.
What an impossible mess I am
And what a lonely life I’m set to live.
Long past
Were these days present?
Some faint nostalgia calls
Like the black keys
The progression of fingerfalls
Dancing through the misery
And I was before language
When the notes played a masterpiece
Swirling through ivories and time
Did it transport me
To these days? To some beauty
That must still search out my soul?
It’s a corridor with two open doors
I felt forward; I now see back through
I hear the piano recollecting
Tenderly, as a primrose blooms,
How it sang years to me
While mine were still new
I have vague impressions
In smokey-ocean grays and blues
Of feeling these happenings approaching
Before one of them came true
Not in detailed view,
But as a series of emotional collisions.
But if, as a child, I could feel,
If, through the notes, I could see
Why did I always believe
A great Love was ahead of me?
Could I feel straight through to eternity?
Is that why I still feel Love is nearer to me?
Even closer than I think?
The Great Love Who calls and grants vision,
Who tells you what He is doing
Long before it appears,
Who describes His works
Before they draw near,
Who announces Himself,
Who blinds kings,
But gives children and paupers
The privilege to see.
I’ve felt my hand put to the plow;
I don’t want to turn back now.
I want to give You everything.
It is for You alone to depose kings
It is for me to be brave.
I don’t want Egypt back; I was a slave
As a submissive and devalued wife.
Free me to a higher purpose in life
Then meting out entertainment.
I am trapped in the containment
I will probably fail, but I’d rather try
Than live and die
In the constant shallows.
I want to walk on hallowed ground.
I want the best for him,
But as a woman,
I do not love him.
viewingcamelot 