Lent Poems, Page IV

3/11/05
Thank you for my imagination,
That occupies me in daydreams through many dull hours,
For a voice that accompanies it in song,
For words that flesh it out in the telling,
For an inner eye that watches it like a movie.
Simplest of diversions, I carry it with me everywhere,
And it is an organ close to your heart.


3/13/05
There is a chance that you plan for me to be single all my life.
But I believe that somewhere, you made and are hiding
The other half of my heart.
I miss that half terribly sometimes.
Oh God, make him good and true,
A virtuous poet and a merciful warrior,
A great man, capable of humble deeds,
Someone to stimulate my mind and spark my heart.
And if he were good-looking, that wouldn’t go amiss, either.
But I don’t have to pray these things,
For I know that whoever you have planned for me
Is perfect for me, is my best possible mate
And the best fit for my life, mundane and spiritual.
But oh God, make me good enough for him,
Great and virtuous for him,
A wife to bring her husband honor,
Strong enough to strengthen him,
Soft enough to comfort him,
And pure enough to walk side-by-side with him,
Closer to you every day.
And if you made me pretty enough for him, that wouldn’t go amiss, either.
But I don’t have to pray these things,
For just as you planned him to belong to me,
So you planned me to belong to him.
I am already growing into everything he needs,
And he is growing into everything I need.

Only this one thing I pray:
Let us be single-minded in our pursuit of you,
Both longing to love you more and more every day,
Even more than we, in our perfectly God-planned match, will love each other.


3/14/05
I want an adventure.

I am so sick of reading them and not living them.
And I can’t even define that word for you, or explain why I want one so much!
I just feel that something is missing in my life—in me—
Until I have one.
It’s that unreachable escape,
It’s that place beyond the hill that I can never get to.
So maybe it’s heaven,
And maybe my adventure is waiting for me on the other side.

["Heaven is what I cannot reach!" by Emily Dickinson]


3/15/05
Three things I long for,
Four I desire most:
A romantic adventure like the greatest novel,
To write in a way I am ultimately satisfied with,
To find my true match,
And for all my experiences of sehnsucht to be consummated in the joy of God.

Only one of these things I am absolutely certain will ever come to me.
And when it comes, it shall swallow up the rest.

[Made to sound like the book of Proverbs]


3/16/05
Joy is a beautiful woman
Who walks hand-in-hand with Hope.
She is fed and made strong by the hand of Wisdom,
And has nothing to do with Folly.
The wise seek her out,
And she speaks with them at the door of the house of Wisdom,
She sings to them, and her voice if full of everything good.
She is always to be found in the places one does not expect,
Equally at home in a crowd of friends and along the quiet paths of solitude.
She is found wherever the Lord is found,
And he is everywhere.
She worships at his feet, and he teaches her songs.
He gives her a home,
And her home is a haven for her friends,
Her close and intimate companions.
The Lord gives her service to his bride,
A bridal gift for his lady.
She protects the hearts of many children in hard times
And leads human hearts back to their Lord.

[Also in Proverbs style]


3/17/05
Today, I’m feeling homesick.
The simplest thing can set it off—
A bit of longing music,
A glance at a certain lovely corner of the woods,
A story about the adventures of one’s imagination—
And I long to be away,
So very far away, beyond the seventh wave,
Beyond “the baths of all the western stars”
Or “the utter east”,
Somewhere south of Antarctica
Or north of Ultimate Thule,
“The beginning of eternity,
The end of time and space”.
It sounds so wild and so distant,
And yet it’s home to me,
And I’ve been away from it for so long—
So very long.
I want to go home.

["Ulysses" by Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Voyage of the Dawntreader by C. S. Lewis, and an old riddle]


3/18/05
I am so incredibly blessed.
I could have been anyone,
Born anywhere, in any time.
Instead, I was born into a wealthy and secure nation,
With peace in my land, and freedom from tyranny.
I was born into a place
Where I would have food enough
And clothes enough, and warmth enough,
Running hot and cold water and indoor plumbing!
I was born into a good Christian home
With a family that loves me,
And loves each other, and loves God,
That raised me to know him.
Furthermore, I was gifted
With intelligence and creativity
And the means to develop them.

I should never complain again. I already have everything anyone ever desired.


3/19/05
Sometimes I fear I’m missing something
That I used to be;
The light falls differently, somehow,
From what I used to see.

The music strikes my heart in ways
I do not understand,
What once was bitter, now tastes sweet;
What once was piquant now seems bland.

Have I outworn my childhood thoughts,
Sensations that once felt so high?
Not many children, I think, have felt
Those thoughts swirl round as I.

Something’s missing, something that
I once rejoiced to be—
Something’s different in the world
Because the world’s changed me.


Thank God! We no longer suffer the thing
They called the long defeat,
The thing Homer draped o’er many a line,
The sorrow that made tales complete.
Many an epic, embroidered with woe,
Speaks of a glory in death,
Many a hero despaired of his goal
To find better fame that that bought with last breath.
That sorrow was lovely because it was true,
And glorious because it despaired.
It knew there was nothing that lasted for good
On this earth, so bleak and so bare.
But a twist in the story, a break with the fates
Has happened, and now we can say
The defeat will soon end and the vict’ry begin
And the night sudden yield to the day.


3/20/05
The world is full of signs and symbols.
Man’s very brain—capable of abstract thought,
Capable of logic, imagination, empathy and reason,
Capable of language—
Is made to look for symbols and to operate entirely on symbols.
And as we were made as symbols for God,
In his image,
That is how he operates, too.
Types, signs, symbols, metaphors,
Language itself—
Is it any wonder God made all things by speaking them?
Is it any wonder I praise him so?

[Spoken like a true English major. lol]