TENSION

a poem

I desire a song,
But the melody is not for me.
My longing stretches over a sea
Of love and possibility
Eternal, old and strong.

The hands I steward fiddle
In the trade of arias and chime;
Of rhythm, harmony and time,
Yearning to capture line by line
The tension of the middle.

For long forgotten ages,
Souls rich and poor, and small and great,
Have etched in wood or stony plate
With sweat and tears to formulate
The wisdom of the sages.

An unremitting blaze
Of holy love all set aglow
Has kindled flames now deep below;
A storm of sparks with no shadow
In Your unending gaze.

I desire a song,
But the syllables I cannot find.
Ineffable beyond my mind,
Robed in power, yet wholly kind:
The One Who all the worlds designed,
Unmade, Immovable, Entwined
As Three, yet One, Who heals the blind
And sits above all things enshrined;
Enthroned with crystal glass outlined
Beneath His feet, still unconfined
In love and justice, both aligned,
And Who, one day, will set mankind
In glory, Heaven and Earth combined;
Eternal, old and strong.