Deserted

(Suggested by Psalm 88)

Within this darkened hold I languish long,
As waves without beat hard upon the hull,
And shrieking gales rehearse what nature’s flung
To stifle chanties I’d perhaps have sung
If trapped I’d never been inside this shell...

But thousand miles’ aloneness lies between
All safety and this dungeon on the waves.
I cannot see...indeed, I’ve never seen
The One who promised streams and pastures green--
The Rescuer who sees and cares and saves.

What doubts those waves now dash upon my mind!
What fears accompany the blasting mist,
Pelting my heart with taunts that faith is blind--
And Providence capricious and unkind!
Suspicion whispers God does not exist!

The Dark, the Dark creeps into every pore;
It makes all luminosity a dream...
And I lie quaking--shaken to the core--
Close to denying all I knew before,
Extinguishing faith’s faintest, faltering gleam.

The Cry, the Cry of “why?” is in my throat,
For of a Fount of Life I’m now bereft...
Gone now the joys of which I used to gloat;
All pleasant recollections now remote,
Now but a man-shaped chasm all that’s left...

But suddenly that shape assumes a form
That memory drags up from dungeons deep:
A bitterer bereavement...sterner storm...
Far deadlier desertion...heaviest harm
That ever caused a mortal will to weep.

That man-shape horror dared a poisoned cup
Full-brimming with a billion acts of crime,
And calls me from that chalice now to sup--
Identify with Him who drank it up
To rectify my guilt for all of time!

Because of Him, my storm will soon abate,
Imprisonment will hardly seem an hour
Until the Dark is drowned from Heaven’s gate
Whence floods the light all faithful ones await--
The Light, the King, the Christ who comes in power!


MNA  October 12, 2014