How do I excavate this sorrow
Seeping through my soul
Like buried waste
Irradiating the soil
I feel it’s toll and poison
Washing through me
And I’ve tried my tools
Against the dirt
Cutting into the vast unknown
But I can’t unearth what’s hidden:
What I can’t see
Or comprehend-

Will there be time enough
For me to mend?
Is there any value
In fertilizing the fallow?

I’m not looking for an occasion
To abandon the steeple.
I never came in persuasion
To win friends or sway people.

I don’t care for renown,
A following to keep-
Wherever my ground
I want to feed Your sheep.

I’ve acquired no taste
For the kingdoms we build
Out of our own waste,
With hands unskilled

When You waste no splinter
Tending the clippings of our souls,
Our barren winters
Blossom into beauty untold;

I miss those who see as I see,
But whether foreign ambassador or humble witness:
I just want to be
About my father’s business.

In this moment I am
A foreign language unto myself
I’ve been trading for time
Against my spiritual health,
My deep convictions,
And emotional well-being
Now, in this state,
I can’t trust I am seeing
the forest for the trees.
Alone so long in this place
My heart, my speech, is losing
The seasoning of grace.

But if I can’t love them,
How can I love You?
I want to be done,
But I want to see it through
To the proper end-
Then withdraw to mend.