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Random acts of poetry

OK, I don't know how this stuff all fits together, but it's what's bouncing around in my head right now, so I'm going to post them without comment. Except, er, for this comment here, I guess. The first is a poem I wrote the other day; the second is a Jars of Clay song called Faith Enough; the third is the hymn Fill Thou my Life, O Lord my God; the fourth is the poem Pied Beauty by Gerald Manley Hopkins.

Our lives are split, drenched with pouring sorrow

Fringed with tears, circled ‘round by leavings
Comings and goings, greetings and partings
When will everything change?

I want to live and work in joy
when every pain is joy, the joy of
pain well-earned, well-carried
The ache of muscles, after serving
How can all this be?

There is a time or will be, say
they say our dreams shall come true
I heard You say the other day
that what was
is not
but shall be

When will You return?

The ice is thin enough for walkin'
The rope is worn enough to climb
My throat is dry enough for talkin'
the world is crumblin' but I know why
the world is crumblin' but I know why

The storm is wild enough for sailing
The bridge is weak enough to cross
This body frail enough for fighting
I'm home enought to know I'm lost
I'm home enought to know I'm lost

Just enough to be strong
In the broken places, in the broken places
It's just enough to be strong
Should the world rely on faith tonight

The land unfit enough for planting
Barren enough to conceive
Poor enough to gain the treasure
Enough a cynic to believe
Enough a cynic to believe

Confused enough to know direction
The sun eclipsed enough to shine
Be still enough to finally tremble
And see enough to know I'm blind
See enough to know I'm blind

Fill Thou my life, O Lord my God,
In every part with praise,
that my whole being may proclaim
Thy being and Thy ways.
Not for the lip of praise alone,
nor e'en the praising heart,
I ask, but for a life made up
of praise in every part.

Praise in the common things of life,
its goings-out and -in,
Praise in each duty and each deed,
however small and mean.
Fill ev'ry part of me with praise:
let all my being speak
of Thee and of Thy love, O Lord,
Poor though I be, and weak.

Glory be to God for dappled things -
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-mioles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal, chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced -- fold, fallow and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzel, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

Posted by Tim at December 3, 2003 12:31 AM