My enemies are a storm of seas.
They are snapping teeth, an endless,
Unkillable, unloveable, unlistening night.
I stumble and they laugh.
I tuck tail and tremble.
They pounce and play.
They take what they will with indelicate bites.
They lay wagers on whether God will share
Any of his dwindling stock of saving,
Or if I have spent my last stack of chances.
Is this poetry prayer enough?
Will I find you a shield?
Will I find softness when I bring
My heap of errors before you,
Or the hard blade of your hand,
Honed for cutting?
But be glory in me. Be loved.
Be great somehow.
Get sorrow stopped.
My opposition mounts,
But matters less and less.
Fall on every trouble that dogs me
Like a falcon tipped from holy heights.
Be thunder and smoke. Be storm bright.
Give us the shelter of your strange light.
The danger drew close around me,
But I was still safe. I slept.
I woke. I remained. I remembered.
Now no numberless, nameless,
Ravening fears can make me flinch.
Now my shelter is all around me.
It goes where I go.
God’s salvation is breaking light.
It is an encircling safety inside the rising water,
A sunder of the storm sea,
And we all walk through on dry land.
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