Soliloquy of Light (Magnus Frangipani)
5 Αυγούστου 2017
Before I read of You
In charts of the night,
Oh, soliloquy of light,
Everything was dark as rye, silent and deaf and dry.
I belonged to someone else,
To a king of charcoal and eucalyptus,
It was as if
I had survived in a hole of opaque mists
Buried to my soul –
But a silent memory of You
Told me where to go.
Among the cedars and silent pines,
Everything within me was dry.
We chewed dark breads, the sleeves of our coats
Cut out from the night. With lambs, sheep and goats
We crossed dunes and ruins
Of palaces, and faces
Blank as ghosts.
But I did not understand, as if walking in my sleep,
This message blotted from the land, erased
From the minds of men. You see them,
Walking to and fro, lost in a confusion
Of fire and snow. Most have gone crazy, it seems,
Chasing passions and dreams wet and dark as the sand
After a night’s emptying of rain
From Your hand.
I know of their misery all too well,
My own heart, after all, is a wall between heaven and hell.
Please make Your place in it,
I ask only for a little grace in it.
Though there’s no reason why,
No need
To give a reply,
I am a sinner,
As the otherswill attest.
I do not give rest
To temptation when it wakens in my soul.
Most of the time, I do not know where to go.
But a silent memory of You in my heart
Has taken hold.
My Lord, and my Savior,
I grow old, I grow old.
When I was a boy
This star of Bethlehem had taken hold,
But now I fear I may lose it,
For my eyes have gone blind. O Father of lights,
Shining forward and behind,
Your birth marries both day and night,
Shadow and self,
Hidden and what is not hidden.
How rare it is that we find You,
How the Captain will steer the ship right,
When days go by without a slip,
And numbered among the dead, as well they might.
Because the smallest struggles strengthen the soul.
Silent memory,
O Soliloquy of light,
Please show me
Where to go.
It was originally posted on Servant of Prayer and is posted here with permission.
