Revival and Renewal

I felt joy and love depart
In flurries of tangled emotion
And frantic senses of my weary heart
That disguise themselves as devotion.

A mastery I never had,
A false birth-right I long pursued,
That taught me: “you are nature’s bane;
Time’s gate; decay’s despair;
The master of your fate;
All things rest in your care.”

A stillness caught me, I looked and saw
a brilliant world, all self-composed.
Me-less, yet nature still; time
ungated by my machinations; decay
the caterpillar’s inspiration; and fate
not a tool to crush the competition
But a Voice that breaks my suppositions:

“Do you make the cricket sing
The maple spread its leaves in joy?
To you does the west wind reply, ever
Saying ‘Master’, ‘Friend’, and ‘Straight-guide’?
Are the greens at your command, in brilliant display?
Can you cause the hummingbird to fly
With calmness mixed with frantic love?
My hand, not yours, brings flower to bud
And causes the noonday to burn it away.

“When you to My power reach
Seeing valley and hill alike
Your ‘nature’, ‘time’, and ‘decay’ but speak
‘Grace’, and ‘love’, and ‘eternity.’”

Sweet repentance, turning true
What I lost in me, I found in You.

(c) Casey Dwyer, 2023