viewingcamelot

You found me in this place
And refused to let go

Your name is Great:
A thunder that divides,
But Your great gentleness
Coming alongside,
Catching the tears,
Soothing the broken child
Who bites Your hand,
And rants, and writhes wild-
It’s Your gentleness
That shakes my foundations.
Forgive my unforgiveness,
My briney imprecations;
I returned violence for violence.
Oh, my blinded audacity!
Yet You, Weaver of the Impossible,
Persevered in pertinacity.
You walked with me
A country mile.
You defended me
In the din of the vile,
In the lair of the lewd,
You preserved my purity.
You laid Your unchangeable name
As my unbreakable surety,

Forgive me the groanings of my immaturity.

All I hope to know, to show,
Is the loving glow of Your face.

As this season closes shut
And the storm-strewn days
Stretch across the foreign lawn
In chaotic, abandoned arrays
Sprawling in a static wave-
A farewell in a rearview
Before the forgotten hush
Sweeps the old under the new.

I’m sorry I blamed them
For not throwing me a rope,
For the absence of a safe corner.
I put the responsibility of hope
On their otherwise occupied shoulders.
In all my upcoming miles
I pray I lose the complaints
And keep the smiles.

This was a brutal season
And there is relief in the goodbye
And some sorrow;
I know how hard I tried.
I know where my efforts ran dry.

I’m ready to put it all aside,
And drive.

I feel the change in air pressure,
In gravity, in weight
I am falling backwards
Out of this place
This occurring singularity
Presenting itself like fate
With all wonder and horror
Simultaneously trapped in the space
Between waiting rooms,
Strangers queued, like bait,
Which realm was the nightmare?
Which reality is apace
Of racing time, and drifting rays,
And the cold gray that lies in state
At the end of the queue?
I shroud my face

From this day forward.

My world was always spinning.
Disembodied hands
Pushing, pinching, pulling,
Before I could stand
Always too soft, too spun,
Too broken on the wheel
Of living, moving, having being:
The wound created to heal.

And in every rough-hewn fingerprint
They left behind
Is a tender design,
A spinning whorl of the Divine.

You are the Potter-King;
You waste no clay
On Your spinning wheel.
There has never been a day
You did not care for me;
You’ve had me in Hand.
No turn can change
The work You have planned,

And I am Your poem,
And You are my All.
Shape the pain, shape the day-
I yield to Your call.

Thank You for Your tenderness,
The gentleness in Your craft
Thank You for providing
In every breath I draft
Comfort and companionship.
No one can stop You.
I believe with all that I am
Or may be: You are True.

Your promises are sure
Like the west wind
Collecting afar
And returning again

I don’t know
What You are molding
But I trust Your palm
Inscribed, upholding
You brace my gaps,
And make me whole,
While broken still,
You mend my holes

Oh Great I AM,
The Benevolent
Sculpter of souls.

I slip beneath
The icy wave
Take hold, Father!
Deign to save

I remain at Your mercy
And Your mercy alone.

The dry bed drinks the rain
Like it never fell
Not because it hates the rain,
But because it’s hell

To live without it.

I absorb all You give me
With little to show
Because in a drought
In order to grow

I need a flood.

I hate everything
Nearly everyone.
What is left for the promise?
I just want to be done.

I can’t imagine anything
That would make these days
Worth the tears I’ve shed
Or the bitter haze

Of human interaction.

Father God,

Forgive the myopic faithlessness
And curses I’ve spoken.
I can’t imagine a way
To restore what is broken,

And I don’t want to give anyone
The satisfaction

Ever again.

Let the murderers live in their own sin

Until the blood they drink, they drowned in.

I just want to leave here,
But there’s nowhere to go
Where some echo of their bloodlust
Isn’t sure to follow.

I don’t know how to,
But I choose to believe You.

Because I believe,
Praise Your awesome name
You are righteous in all You allow
And in all You proclaim
Thank You for all the blessings
I cannot yet see to count,
But when I look back
Will have been enough to surmount

The hurdles of tombstones
And empty bones.

All that’s left is scarring.
There is no skin.
There is no way
To be whole again.

I don’t want to go; I want to stop.
Not to leave, but to cease.
There’s nothing but more pain
Underneath every release.

You said Your plan
Was worth the wait,
But where is a love strong enough
To penetrate and dissolve this hatred?

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
And I am so sick here.
You promised, and I wait
In agony, in a cemetery, in fear

So achingly alone
In the dark fugue of despair
The rejected wife
For whom, no man cares.

Aren’t You a God of justice?
Don’t You care for the poor, the broken?
Do these tears fall between the cracks:
Heaven’s forgotten tokens?

Be You.
Forgive me.

Father,

I am here.

And I know You are.
Today, I feel overwhelmed,
But I believe You
Are still at the helm.

Thank You
I don’t deserve what You do.
Thank You for promising
You will make all things new.

There is no corner of my life
I feel joy to inhabit,
Except the one that dissolved-
But I can’t have it.

Forgive my failure
To give proper thanks to You,
To enjoy Your good gifts,
Or give credit where it’s due.

I am grateful, but sore.
I ache to be done
With the days in between
What I’ve lost to the run,

And the promise You’ve won.

I can’t imagine feeling good again.
Every victory feels like an empty wind.

But I am here.
I’m still all in.