Following the lights to scattered campfires, wandering to who knows where.
The moon was full
My heart was hungry
Who am I? Where am I? So lost, confused and crying.
When my father held me as a baby, his heartbeat soothed my every tear.
When I am close to Jesus, I am near his heartbeat too.
I am a baby in his arms and His Sacred Heart holds my heart in the safest place I'll ever be.
As I grew older, my dad and I camped by the river. The heartbeat of the river soothed me in the intoxicating laurel thicket where we slept.
Every evening, my dad's friend would say, “This is the life.”
Years passed when I could not hear that heartbeat.
All I could hear were chaotic sounds of need and fear,
frantic crickets and cicadas seeking quickly fleeting mates.
The moon was full
My heart was hungry
Starving, all alone.
One day, I will find myself, floating on my back, nailed to my cross.
I won't move there but I'll be freer than in all my life, alongside of Jesus in that river of peace.
Indifferent to my pain, my peace will deepen, more than I have ever known. He has shown me that.
Jesus, floating with me, will say to me, with all delight, “My child, this is the life.”
The Cross, it is the Life, the life that pulls me back into the rhythm of His heart at His breast and the waves in their joy, “My child my child, this is the Only Life.”
My heart is full
As the moon fades into dawn.
Amen.
-Laura Paxton 11/02/2013
beautiful Laura !!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteYour poem radiates with heart felt devotion and of that there can be no doubt. I love the way that you compare the closeness you felt to you father as a child and how you relate to Jesus now. It this you depict Him to be the great nurturer of one's inner most being and your utter sincerity is so apparent. You evoke beautiful imagery and blend it together in superb way.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Paul. The only way to express some things is through poetry. Nothing else does it.
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