Friday, October 24, 2008

I am a house gutted by fire.

I've thrown myself back into the world of Christ-centered literature and poetry.
May YHWH continue using the warrior poets of past days to teach me to write for the sake of His Glory.

This is by Rilke. It's captured my thoughts and mediation recently.
Enjoy.

I am praying again, Awesome One.
You hear me again, as words
from the depths of me
rush toward you in the wind.

I've been scattered in pieces,
torn by conflict,
mocked by laughter,
washed down in drink.

In alleyways I sweep myself up
out of garbage and broken glass.
With my half-mouth I stammer you,
who are eternal in your symmetry.
I lift to you my half-hands
in wordless beseeching, that I may find again
the eyes with which I once beheld you.

I am a house gutted by fire
where only the guilty sometimes sleep
before the punishment that devours them
hounds them out into the open.

I am a city by the sea
sinking into a toxic tide.
I am strange to myself, as though someone unknown
had poisoned my mother as she carried me.

It's here in all the pieces of my shame
that now I find myself again.
I yearn to belong to something, to be contained
in an all-embracing mind that sees me
as a single thing.
I yearn to be held
in the great hands of your heart--
oh let them take me now.

Into them I place these fragments, my life,
and you, God--spend them however you want.

3 comments :

  1. Victory of the People said...

    i feel like i have heard this before

  2. Victory of the People said...

    i feel like i have heard this before

  3. Kelsey said...

    I really like this. "I am strange to myself..." Beautiful and haunting. Except, I wish that there was a new word to replace "haunting," because it has been overused, making this comment sound cheap. But at least I got to appreciate that poem, which is the furthest thing from cheap.