I Was the Lion

Can this chaos turn to light?

My eyes again fail to see,
How the path came this way,
And where the worn road will lead
Next as dark mountains break the vision
So I am weary; I sigh complaints as
Life flickers away with each passing day
I’m haunted by a thousand dreams
Swallowed in a roaring sea
Submerged ‘neath the rolling waves
Of past regrets and pressing fears.

This empire of dirt –
it’s everything
Of all I hoped would come about.
Like a child’s sandcastle
Slowly dissolves in the ocean’s grip
It falls apart as sadness
Runs a river down my face.
Weighted down with scales of pride
Torn and bleeding from worldly wounds
Innocence soiled by seeds of despair.
The bloom is black
My lack, my lack.
I curse the cosmos for these constant sorrows,
My loss.
Loss.
I compose my soul in the morning light
As He
like a lion - He breaks all my bones.

Quiet!
Out of silence comes the answer:
No answer.

Wait.

The Dark God approaches.

Heavy clouds cover the spoiled empire
Light races
across the immovable sky.
The earth shakes, the mountains melt
The ocean stills.

The Terror of the North
With ancient hosts
All in flight, all in might
Come raining down
In torrents of glory
Consuming what I used to be.
Fire and fury, sound and silence
Echoes from the other side!

The Great God speaks:
“I WAS THE LION.”

Something sweet and solemn drips
Heavily off a golden mane
I dart my eyes away
From His undoing gaze.
I will not,
I can not breathe.
This, this can not be
Louder, faster,.
Closer He strides,
Further up
and further in
To me.

Still.

He comes in fury, He comes in warmth
He comes in glory.
He comes to me.

And I surrender.

Joy.

Joys that Sting

"Oh doe not die, says Donne, for I shall hate
All women so. how false the sentence rings.
Women? But in a life made desolate
It is the joys once shared that have the stings.

To take the old walks alone, or not at all,
To order one pint where I ordered tow,
To think of, and then not to make, the small
Time-honoured joke (senseless to all but you);


To laugh (oh, one'll laugh), to talk upon
Themes that we talked upon when you were there,
To make some poor pretence of going on,
Be kind to one's old friends, and seem to care,

While no one (O God) through the years will say
The simplest, common word in just your way."

--C.S. Lewis