I recently found these tucked away in an envelope with my mother’s handwriting on the front, identifying them as mine. It seems, say I who have no memory of this event, that I sent them to her and my step-father, Peter, at some point along the way. Interesting to come upon snippets of the me of then.
From April 5 and 6, 1992:
RESURRECTION
When all are gone and no more look
With love’s approving eye;
When faces mock that once were turned
To smile at some shared joke;
When on the phone the whispers pounce,
Their lies believed by each;
I in my self-imposéd cell
Sit weeping, left to die.
Whose plan is this? My cry goes out.
My sin or theirs, I ask.
But in the darkness all around
My echo bounces back.
Silence rings; it thunders loud.
Its screams resound within.
The need to know, to see, to hear
Is how I’m made, it seems.
Faith, they say, is knowing not,
But in the not, to know.
An easy things it’s always seemed
Until the dark snuck in.
But there it is, the problem looms:
In silence is there trust?
The pain remains to cry a “no!”
But memory must win.
The spirit hopes, the spirit cries,
It answers darkness, “Yes!”
And in that wrenching, pain-filled cry,
A dusty faith breaks loose.
The skeptic balks, he laughs, he jeers,
But, oh, my tears are dry.
And soaring now within life’s flow,
I raise my wings on high.
CHOICES
Choices are so hard to make,
With each new day another looms.
To go to this or go to that,
To take this call, to make that friend.
Like greedy hands outstretched to me
Are all the things I ought to be.
Am I the one to fill that need?
To take this job, to pat that head?
The children want, my husband calls,
The dog is pawing at my heel.
The cat meows, the water boils,
The phone is jangling in my ear.
The postman comes; I’ve won a trip:
“Just pay the fee to get you there,
And all is free.” Oh, do I dare?
Can I say “no” to such a deal?
Choices, choices beckoning me,
How can I know? How can I hear?
The good, the bad, the better still.
Which is it now? How can I tell?
Slowly then I climb in bed
With never an answer in my head.
A still small voice begins to mock:
“When are you quiet enough to hear?
When at you silent enough, my dear?”
I WANT TO WRITE
I want to write, put words on paper,
Make men weep, and laugh, and sigh,
Want to touch their hearts with thoughts
That lift them far above the mire,
Draw them close to heavenly places,
Close and closer toward their God,
So they see with beaming faces
He who called them to His side.
Still I’m locked with all around me
To an earthly prison’s fate.
Bound in fetters, chains of darkness,
Crying loudly deep inside.
Who’s to hear me, loose my bindings?
Who’s to listen when I cry?
Look up, look up, the Lord He calls me,
Beckons up to Heaven’s Gate,
Says to lay aside my fetters,
Touches with His nail-scarred hand,
Loosens all the chains that bind me,
Frees me with one drop of Blood.
Pen to paper I can tell it,
Now I know the words to shout.
He alone of all can lift me,
He alone can know my name.
So I write of clouds that scatter,
Light that renders darkness dead,
Truth that eagle’s wings endowers,
Faith that robs the stinger’s death.