Animals

Again you find me here,
more animal than man,
trapped in my silver cage
of illusions and sins.
I'm proud and ashamed, but
not willing to concede:
Grace may be sufficient,
but I'm not on my knees.
I recoil from the heat
of my own snarling heart--
but how can I hide this?
You forged me in the dark.
Mumbling apologies,
I slip through years like days,
wondering if my sin
condemns more than you save.
Silently, I confess
I also question if
you care, or if at death
I'll find an empty chair.

Then steadily within myself,
I hear a different voice ascend.
It asks me how I know my sins--
are sins?, and how I find I am
not as the animals, but Man?
I grieve my faults, it knows, but why?
And then demands--"Whose Voice Am I?!"
Then from my empty chair You rise
into view: old eternal flame
unchanged, but every morning new.
Dark cloud of terror, beautiful
and fierce; a deadly holiness,
all power in a moment pierced.
And yet, you breathe of grace and love;
redemption in your blood and pain!
So then: "Whose voice am I? And why
do you hear me so close within?"

A glimpse--then find myself
an animal again.

March 2019

This started out as the first stanza, then sat in my notes folder for a few months.  I came back to it this weekend and started up a tortured development process, resulting in this tepid and awkward execution.  I'm posting it so I can stop working on it for a bit.  I want it to be a lot better than it is, but it's not--and, like me, it's resistant to change.