Letter Written In Fetters - 7
Dear son,
I have no prologue, nor epilogue, only dialogue
That began when God's mirror was only man
God's ultimate mind, his dream, his purpose
The lump of clay in his hand, he hears his heart
Pouring over structure after structure of his great design
And we became as he intended, his cherished sons.
I did not make you this way, and should doubt
My efficacy to have ever made you at all. I can't resist
Memories of my own heart beating over you
When I held you cuddled to my love, new born
Is growing up, growing away too? Then the empty nest
Was the twin of your birth, my tragedy deferred
For the now when the phone never rings, and we smile
And say hello, for it is all a heart can hold now
Grooming you, feeding you, buying your joy
In boxes clustered like a room with toys ... these things
Are so superficial to the estrangement we have with God.
From that place of pain I would see, know, touch my life
Like I have meant to touch yours over the walls
Of many interventions and internecine strife, meet me
Like a man and think, how could I take you on Moriah
Unless in another way I had also died? Before we heard
The bleating lamb that would bleat no more on the cross
I had faith that you and I are more eternal than a knife
Raised like a fiend against the ethics of civilization
As if our best gift to God are dead children. You cannot
Come down from that mount without understanding
The way I understand how Oedipus blinded was the same
But unlike Abram, no deity supervened in his pain.
Every separation is another kind of death. Every love
A tragedy struggling to give birth to life again.
I love you son, and always will remain, your father
Longing for the same cross that always is redemption.
Copyright © David Smalling | Year Posted 2012
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