If I don’t secure my position before sleeping,
by dawn my wounds will continue their seeping.
Then if I shout not for the doctor, I’ll suppose
In my weakness that my friends have turned into foes.
I’ll make the stars of greatness my competition
for beside their glow my value feels threatened.
Their authority endangers my elusive control,
and their rightness points at my soot-black soul.
So, to attest my worth that vanished overnight,
I’ll make their art and religion a slight.
I’ll belittle their efforts to stand on their backs.
I’ll spotlight their flaws to hide my ill acts.
“How does she manage to get so fat?”
“She must be attention-starved to talk like that.”
“I’ll submit not to him nor enlarge his huge head.”
“Their brand of Christianity what good can be said?”
Thus my critiques become self-built certainty
that because I’m not like them, I must surely be
a person of superiority and surpassing worth
deserving honor and respect henceforth.
And if at my fault-finding anyone snaps,
I can easily prove its all in the facts.
And since I call truthfulness the greatest of virtues,
I prove myself better again with this ruse.
Up goes the cry from the wreck in my tracks,
from speech filled with words intended to slash.
Words behind which I hide vacant spaces
un-patched one morning when I forgot His graces.
I must before the day overtakes me
remember who’s power o'r all things decrees
that I have great value in Him who foresees,
that one day spotless and strong I shall be.
It is in vulnerability that I strike at a threat.
It is in my humanness each day to forget
that the goodness in me needs no daily defense.
He that paid it, sustains it and petitions it hence.
And if in the morn I remember this way—
He calls me good because of Him who was slain—,
then neither greatness in friends nor shining of stars
nor the authority of enemies will threaten my heart.
Posts
Comments