Tuesday, October 29, 2013

My baffled heart

My baffled heart

The heart is a seed buried in the chest
due for an eventual flowering

or grit, perhaps, for a future pearl.  Or, say,
the heart is a bird, its singing muted

by layers of flesh.  I tell repeatedly my sons
I love them lest they forget, lest they doubt;

lest they drift away, my throat bearing
a mere trembling resemblance to the truth

my baffled heart is unable to express.
You wore, o wordless One, Your heart

invariably on Your sleeve; Your love,
Your presence, speechless and palpable,

awakened in Your lovers' chests; in their own hearts.
Such were the human changes You wrought.

Long after the husk and flesh were shed,
Your naked seed buried in that rocky soil,

Your presence, Your love awoke
in my stone tomb, my human, baffled heart --

Your love -- wordless, eloquent, shared
across the chasm, through the lover's flesh,

lest I didn't know; lest I had forgotten; lest
I should ever doubt and become estranged.

O child of God, hold on to the silence
in which real things are given and received.

                    

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