Learning to Speak Again

Here's a poem I wrote a few years back, but which I hadn't yet posted publicly--one of my many poems of personal devotion, some of which tend to be exultory and some which tend to be anguished, with very little in between. 

Learning to Speak Again

The bright fires have faded now,

Overcome by the reckless twilight of youth.

But still the dream calls out to me,

And I answer,

      Hesitantly at first,

            Hoping for a spark of beneficence.

I am always here with Him;

But now the old custom seizes me,

And the invisible God remains invisible to me

As I lose sight of the heart of reality.

But the cold night ends at last,

And with the warmth of the golden dawn

I feel His touch again

      And realize

            That He’s still there.

How do you begin speaking again

To someone who’s heard all your promises,

The fierce-whispered pledges of a desperate soul,

And watched you break every one?

He, who knows me so well…

And yet I know Him not,

      Or at least not as well

            As I once presumed to know—

And I know myself even less.

But where knowledge fails, trust remains.

I, untrustworthy,

      But He, ever faithful.

I will know Him again,

For He would have me know;

And all my panicked struggles to escape from grace

Will amount to nothing

As I embrace this adventure

Of learning to speak again.