Bend to the work

Bend to the work
 
I have become an enigma to my intimates,
taking a few moments out
 
from their eventful lives
to worry for me, wonder and worry
 
that I am alone so often with You. 
(A precursor, perhaps, to the next phase of the journey.) 
 
3 am and I am awakened again from a light sleep.
I switch on the bedside lamp and scribble down
 
the rudiments of, by Your grace, the next poem
as the world outside moves over and onward,
 
elbows its way into the illusion of a new tomorrow.
O but I am content in my solitude
 
which is not a solitude at all
but a communion and intimacy with You. 
 
O child of God, seal your lips and bend to the work
your Beloved has so graciously granted you.        

    

The Giver of all

The Giver of all
 
He gives me the images and their descriptions.
This is why I’m still here, I suppose, so late in life
 
though the poetry is riddled with my ignorance,
at times belabored and imperfect,
 
yet its construction is the task
set before me and I treasure it. 
 
It is my communion.  I’ve learned, by the way,
that ignorance veils the mind,
 
but leaves the heart untouched.  These words,
of utmost importance, are light as a feather,
 
brief as a sigh, like ink soaking into paper,
like the fleeting import of a cricket’s twitter.
 
He gives me the images and the words
and lets me use this intimacy
 
to feel His presence, His warmth,
to burrow a little deeper into the Mystery.
 
O child of God, is there anything as precious
as an undeserved gift from the Giver of all? 

  

Take me over

Take me over
 
Take me over, comforting warmth, 
as the hours grow short, tomorrows dwindle
 
and the nights are ripe with His presence.
The candle has begun to gutter
 
and the world is reduced to two
before the two become One.
 
The old torch in the chest sizzles and glows,
carried here from a distant fire –
 
a Tomb on a hill eight thousand miles away
and thirty years later and I am alone
 
with a peace beyond my circumstances.
Take me over in this delicious solitude
 
that confirms my faith and foretells of union
not to come later but now – the ever-present, eternal now.
 
Take me over and we shall share
these wordless moments before I am no longer me –
 
I, who never was and never has been
and never will be apart from You.
 
O child of God, burn in the glow,
the silence and warmth of His Presence.   

(painting by Joe DiSabatino)

My God, my God

My God, my God
 
There comes a stretch of the path
where the conversation dies down to a whisper
 
then further dissipates into a comfortable silence.
You are a child again, holding the hand of your Father,
 
(perhaps a father you never had),
trying to match His strides,
 
maintaining a delicious intimacy,
a silent communion with the Silent One. 
 
Your lips are sealed, tongue stolen.
Praise is superfluous, any request an affront.
 
You know there will come again a time
when life will crush a plea from you,
 
perhaps a query – (in good company) 
My God, My God why hath Thou forsaken me?
 
but for a brief spell you possess the aplomb,
the humbling insight that life is too much for you,
 
that the truth of it cannot be contained in words
nor in the bone-encased structure
 
of your understanding.  So you forfeit,
in that fleeting quietude, as much resistance
 
as you can afford with the wish
that one day your surrender
 
will be entire, regardless of any past or future
hardship or loss God has ordained for you.
 
O child of God, savor the sweetness, endure the pain
and hold tightly to the hand of your Father.

(drawing by Rich Panico)