EPIC

     VIII

 

So she waits now,
Waits and prays,
Doggedly loving,
Doggedly hanging on,
Remembering the day of espousals
The day of gladness of heart:
Faithful unto
Life.

EPIC

            VII
 
Well, there was a brown dog
That she took as God's blessing,
Who loved her doggedly.
 
But did the man
Who should have loved
See only the changes?
 
Her frame, like a shaken home;
Her mind, its components reordered;
Her speech fragmented;
Her love constant, womanly.
 
And over all
The Observer of men
Who loved her divinely.
 






If I shouldn't go on, tell me.

EPIC

    VI

Firstly her sensory perception

Betrayed her; he eyes' witness
Warped in her brain.
 
So the brain betrayed
The body, thwarting its need
For food.
 
Mirrors and scales, once
Friends and helps, joined
The betrayal.
 
Was it the brain or the blood
Enacted that betrayal,
Her stroke?
 
Those dependable legs
Betrayed her torso
Into collapse.
 
Faculties of speech
And thought, sight,
Betrayed her too.

But was that stalwart,

Her husband, seeing this shattering,
Truly her betrayer?
 
Or did she betray herself
By releasing the old demon
Unwantedness?

Who would stand to her?

 

 

 

 

 

EPIC

   V

 

Human joy
Will last for a little;
the sorrow
Goes on.
 
But if there are two the sorrow
Is share; the burden
Lightened.
 
Yet for some sorrow
To have a partner in it
Doubles the sorrow.
 
So she could be a crutch
To his illness; he a sling
In her bereavements.
 
But the hunger, the craving,
The childlessness meant
Two sorrows to them.

But there was an inkling
Of a Third to share with:
For she prayed.

EPIC

  IV

But celebrate young love -

Lovebirds,
Love at first sight,
Love's young dream:
Ring out the clichés.
 
But now
The rejected
was accepted;
The unwanted
was wanted.
 

For marriage was God's thought

Before it was ours.

EPIC

   III

So there she – a teenage girl – was:

A boat loosed from its moorings,
Its timbers warped,
With a dangerous cargo.

For while a sister's

Responsibility gave a harbour:
A little repair, painting,
Sorting of the freight

Not enough: cast out
Into the world's oceans without
A known port.  (The Saviour
She did not yet know was too
Outcast.)

Strangers provided

An unknown port – then
Commandeered; gay paint
And bunting could not disguise
The water-logging,
The volatile loading.

Still the lodestar

By which she had not yet learned
To navigate
Shone upon her.

EPIC

         II
 

Wounded by the failed abortion,

Of which she was yet unaware,
She grew in a nest wedged
Between a rotting branch
And a leaning ivy.

Yet a poor father is still

A father – even when distant
In a penitentiary; how good
That over all, secretly, watched
One she would know as Father.

The branch broke,

The ivy collapsed.  But soon
Grew to a new bole
On which to lean.  Slowly its
Branches spread over our heroine,
Its leafs shaded; it became home.

Serpents struck.  The green camouflage

Wilted before her.  The abuse
Left her soul gravid with
A cancer of evil cells
Replicating confusion.

That pathetic ivy granted

No shade, no hiding place,
Meagre refreshment.
It clung to the false tree.

The Observer of men

Observed.  He understood -
He waited – in divine wisdom.




Post more, or delete? - up to you. 

EPIC

   I

So she grew
In the normalcy of
The womb,
Cell by cell bifurcating
In nature and God's way,
The identical cells differentiating
To be seed of the growing organs.

What futures were possible
She did not know; what melding
Of human potential:
Peasant or poet,
Shepherd and soldier,
Tramp, priest,
Princess.

Clung to the womb-wall, nearest
To Eden -
The serpent is at her! No
Subtlety of seduction, like Eve,
But the bitter chemical assault.

That bitter tide
Strives to detach her
From the womb-wall;
Blood that fed her
Becomes her enemy:
Will she hold?

Seaweed clings to the rock,

Depends on the rock
As the tide
Drives it.  Fronds
Swill in eddies, retreat,
Advance;
Hold.

She held.

Through her tenacity,
Through grace of God,
Our heroine held.

For was that womb her

Beginning?  Before time was
She had been the choice of
One she would come to know as
Father: and chosen in Christ.

What bitter chemicals had

Assaulted her? The alembic had held
A father's anger and selfishness,
Pinches of pride and desperation:
A large dose of female weakness.
 
So her birth delivered her to the care
Of a weak mother and selfish father
As a failed reject in the world
That rejected the Son of God.




Do I go on? Or is this already too much?

TRINITY

Our Heavenly Father
Measures blessing and chastening
With Fatherly care.

Before the Father
Stands our High Priest and Patron
Pleading His own work.

The Spirit of God
Guides and comforts, and links us
With heaven’s glory.

SUN

Since He accomplished all the redeeming work

And since it is the right of His own worth

The Lord is set on the Father's throne above:

In that position Christ Jesus is the hub

Of a new system to which He is the Sun -   

He orders each in his own orbit's curve.

If we are true no influence will perturb

No falling star will move us or disrupt

But we shall share the benefits of love:

To gain His light where once we had been dull,

To gain His warmth where bitter frosts occurred,

To gain His peace which nothing can disturb.

HYMN

We worship Thee, Lord Jesus,
The everlasting One;
As He who had existence
Before time had begun,
"Over all God", we gladly fall
Before Thee, Maker of us all.

We bow to Thee, Lord Jesus;
Thou art Emmanuel:
Come down to serve in manhood
And thus do all things well.
Thy glories as the Firstborn shine
With power and grace that are divine.

We praise Thy Name, Lord Jesus,
For all Thou has achieved;
Thou hast secured the blessings
Thy brethren have received;
How great this is - but, greater still,
Thou hast accomplished all God's will .

Lord Jesus, we adore Thee
For what Thou dost, and art,
Thou art the assembly's Object
To satisfy her heart.
Enraptured by Thy grace and charms
Thy bride is resting in Thine arms.




You'll find a tune for this here.

THE GLAD TIDINGS ...

The glad tidings light
Exposes all that has been
Accomplished by Christ.

WHAT ...

What a Friend the sinner has in Jesus
Who will take his burdens all away;
He endured the distance and the darkness
That we might be brought into the day.

What a Lord the Christian has in Jesus
Who is seated on the Father's throne;
From that place He gave the Holy Spirit
And gives grace which cherishes His own.

What a Son the Father has in Jesus
Who was always pleasing in His sight;
Through His worth and all He has accomplished
God eternally will have delight.