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FIGHTING ON MY BEHALF
I am fighting here
alone in my room,
no-one anywhere near me, yet
I am at war.
The principalities and powers
invisibly fight,
keeping the mind
out of the heart.
What would it be like,
I wonder, not
to be alone? Would the sight
of my own children
not be as good
as a sword?
A 'quiver full of arrows'?
I have no weapon, Lord,
to counter that vast
emptiness, only
the warmth of that
thing as it beats
time in my left
breast - that thing that is,
underneath everything,
me.
For we are not
this thing in our heads,
this thing that is -
impressive as it is -
secondary.
It follows on.
And what does it follow?
It follows the heart.
Or else
something else,
something that isn't
the image of God.
Oh how sad
to be following, not
us, as God
made us. But how much sadder
when the heart itself
is taken captive.
Then the concentric
circles of our life
turn as ever
round and round
pointlessly, without
a centre, or perhaps
even worse,
the centre
isn't us.
And so I am sitting here, fighting,
or perhaps
something else is sitting here,
pretending to fight,
or perhaps (this is my hope)
some One has descended into Hell
and is fighting on my behalf.