Breathing III

This filling thing
This breath in
Of sweetness and fair play -
I do what I am today

Because of his hand
On my life - he raised me
Through the years
Blessed me with despair

So I could breathe now
Breathe here
In this high place
Above the crowd

To shout his word out loud
So all can hear
Draw near
And change the way they live.

I am privileged
To sift his thoughts
Speak with the tongue
He gives -

A place of honour and of trust.
I bear his weight
As best I can, the weight of him,
Because I must:

The coin has two sides:
Of given gift and burden borne -
Transaction
Of his lips near my ear
Of isolation and fresh tears
Of joy and sorrow, gain and loss,
Of wisdom and experience
Of bearing my own cross

To this point of
Filling breath
And hallowed mind -
Foresight the precious, given sign.

I am overborne by
Mystery and destiny
By this sweet air,
My own dark fear,


For his hand is on my head
And in my hand -
He leads me where I am led
To where I stand 

In this high place
Where I must say
And say and say
All his mind and heart -

His care of us
As we depart from his straight road
And end in wilderness:
Fey place of no abode -

For there our promise of fair skies
Falters, dies,
For our feet only
Led us here

And by our own hand
Do we spill
The lifeblood in us
That he gave.

He gave us sight, discernment,
But our eyes are dimmed,
Are stomach-led
On trinket-gain and glitterings

By standing on men's backs
To yield us prettier bread;
The false words
On which we choke and die;
The earth is rotting as we stand
And watch our vomit multiply.

There are no trees, the flowers sick
And all our colour fades
As darkness lapps
Around our world man-made;

Our cities stink 
In our own nostrils
And the head reels
As the body cuts itself and falls.

Our wisdom gained in mind
Was lost by dearth of heart -
We sowed with shrivelled souls
And reaped a bitter hand.

We lost our hallowed land -
We spat on it
And now we sit and wait
For night to close and no dayrise.

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