April 2 , 2008

Encounter

“I am like a drunken man, like a man overcome by wine,
because of the Lord and because of his holy words.”
Jeremiah 23:9

I.

A field of sonnets,

Your eyes whispering poetry
underneath a fertile moon.

I listen,

drunk from the wine
Your words exude.

My friends scoff at me,
screaming sobriety.

They insist I am mad,
seduced by myth.

Their eyes murder the light.


II.

You, Lord, are my asylum,
Your eyes my haven.

My heart,
once alone and wintry,
shivered in December’s frost.

But Your voice,
a simple rain from heaven,
waters my earth.

And spring blossoms all around me.

Br. Jeremiah Myriam Shryock, CFR
St. Leopold Friary, Yonkers, New York

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