Soliloquy of Light

Before I read of You

In charts of the night,

Oh, soliloquy of light,

Everything was dark as rye, silent and deaf and dry.

I belonged to someone else,

To a king of charcoal and eucalyptus,

It was as if

I had survived in a hole of opaque mists

Buried to my soul –

But a silent memory of You

Told me where to go.

Among the cedars and silent pines,

Everything within me was dry.

We chewed dark breads, the sleeves of our coats

Cut out from the night. With lambs, sheep and goats

We crossed dunes and ruins

Of palaces, and faces

Blank as ghosts.

But I did not understand, as if walking in my sleep,

This message blotted from the land, erased

From the minds of men. You see them,

Walking to and fro, lost in a confusion

Of fire and snow. Most have gone crazy, it seems,

Chasing passions and dreams wet and dark as the sand

After a night’s emptying of rain

From Your hand.

I know of their misery all too well,

My own heart, after all, is a wall between heaven and hell.

Please make Your place in it,

I ask only for a little grace in it.

Though there’s no reason why,

No need

To give a reply,

I am a sinner,

As the otherswill attest.

I do not give rest

To temptation when it wakens in my soul.

Most of the time, I do not know where to go.

But a silent memory of You in my heart

Has taken hold.

My Lord, and my Savior,

I grow old, I grow old.

When I was a boy

This star of Bethlehem had taken hold,

But now I fear I may lose it,

For my eyes have gone blind. O Father of lights,

Shining forward and behind,

Your birth marries both day and night,

Shadow and self,

Hidden and what is not hidden.

How rare it is that we find You,

How the Captain will steer the ship right,

When days go by without a slip,

And numbered among the dead, as well they might.

Because the smallest struggles strengthen the soul.

Silent memory,

O Soliloquy of light,

Please show me

Where to go.

It was originally posted on Servant of Prayer and is posted here with permission.