Revelation

We make ourselves a place apart
Behind light words that tease and flout,
But oh, the agitated heart
Till someone really find us out.

"Tis pity if the case require
(Or so we say) that in the end
We speak the literal to inspire
The understanding of a friend.

But so with all, from babes that play
At hide-and-seek to God afar,
So all who hide too well away
Must speak and tell us where they are.

--Robert Frost

Mosaic

You are rearranging
the tiles
once again,
Changing the form
and color
Of the picture of
yourself.
Your image altered
in my mind's eye,
I wonder if you
are more yourself
than before.
I can't be sure.

The tower to be built

"...before setting to work for God and to fight against the devil, first calculate your forces; and if you consider yourself well enough equipped to begin, you are a fool, because the tower to be built costs an outrageous price, and the enemy coming out to meet you is an angel, before whom you are of no account. Get to know yourself so well that you cannot contemplate yourself without flinching. Then there will be room for hope. In the sure knowledge that you are obliged to do the impossible in Him who strengthens you, then you are ready for a task which can be performed only through the Cross."

--Jacques Maritain, as quoted by Father Gerald Vann, O.P. in The Seven Swords

The suitor

He is coming on the feast
of Saint Valentine--
his choice, not mine,
of days for meeting
face to face.
The place, the day, are both arranged,
and so the suitor makes his way
to me.
Time always tells,
and we shall see.
But this I know: I am no one's thrall.
I will choose to whom I give my hand,
my heart--
if at all.

from "The Hound of Heaven"

"...All which I took from thee I did but take
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.
All which thy child's mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:
Rise, clasp My hand, and come!"
Halts by me that footfall:
Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
"Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest* love from thee, who dravest Me."

--Francis Thompson


*drove

My virtual book of days

They have always drawn me,
those books of days:
long ago
copied by loving hand,
and embellished so patiently
with color and line.
Here is mine--
a virtual book of days;
its pages seen,
yet never touched by hand,
not even mine.

Worth anything

"I hope that this is really not bad after all, that it's not just terrible and not any good, " I said to my daughter after reading what I'd written. "The words just flow so freely; they come to my mind and there they are ," I continued. "Surely nothing that is this easy can be worth anything."