POETRY
Rebel Hearts
My love, look at the falling leaves,
the golden, lovely, falling leaves—
soon it will be winter.
Soon the gray, the cold, the nether.
So like what we’ve done to our love—
killed it as surely as the winter kills leaves.
How will we explain to our children?
A pox on our rebel hearts—
a plague on their damned, reprobate lusting!
You got yours—I got even.
What did William and Emma get?
A lifetime of pain. Was it worth it?
My love, look at the dying leaves,
the spiraling, desiccated, dying leaves.
See how the late November wind hurls them to the ground,
see how the cold and bitter rain drives them
to oblivion, to the grave.
We are leaves on the wind, detritus before the gale;
pursuing fated dreams,
selfish, loathsome, fated dreams;
our hearts clutching their idols
like drowning sailors clinging to a broken mizzenmast.
Who will redeem our children from the curse we have left them?
Wilderness
Here are the broken-up pieces of my soul;
here is the guilt and the past; here is the long, long list
of things I might have been,
eradicated; torn to shreds, rolled into a little ball,
washed hard and tight by the rain and the snow,
jammed deep into the pocket of my dirty jeans.
And here, here is the map of my life,
showing clearly the many irretrievable hard, hard left-hand turns
into the wilderness of what I’ve been and who I now am.
Do you think it might have been different?
Do you think, even now, a prayer remains?
Charles Eggerth is a follower of Jesus Christ, often failing but always relying on grace. He believes that Christians are called to reach into other socio-economic strata, seeking to minister to physical needs so that God will open doors to deeper spiritual needs.
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Photo Credit: “…and the wind cries Mary” by Nick Kenrick, Flickr.com.
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