Some days,
When
the gray tide of world-weariness
Sweeps
into the harbor of my heart,
I wish
I could be Homer, Tennyson,
Virgil, Donne, or Keats—
One
of those walking wonders
Whose
words reworked the rhythms
Of a million readers’ lives,
Who
had men of verse making
Solemn genuflection at their feet,
And
whose names became the idols
Of those who lived thereafter.
But
I’m not.
And I won’t be.
Firstly,
I suspect,
Because I’m just not good enough.
When
God’s appointed Muse
Kindled up a love of poesy
Amid the fibers and the weave
Of
my discordant heart,
It fell tangled ‘mid the surplus
Of my
insecurity and sloth,
And there, held back by cords that kept it far
From discipline and submission
To
correction from more lucid eyes,
It attained but just a poor-wrought genius,
Lying in
talent within the mass
Of
flightsome mediocrity,
But
in desire, of vaulted skies.
Secondly, my poems
Are too
long,
Too
keen on arcane words,
And
too particular to my own condition
To be of deep enjoyment to anybody else
(Case in point,
see this poem).
Not only so,
My poems
tend not to be
Jarring,
dismal, or tortured enough
To
speak the literary language
Of
a bleak postmodern age.
When they speak of angst,
It’s the
angst of my own broken soul
And
not the shadowy dreariness of the world,
Because, quite frankly,
I’m the
reason the world is broken,
But
not the reason that it’s beautiful.
Thus will my poems make sorrow over sin,
And rejoice
over creation,
And
that’s as it should be,
Whether
postmoderns know it or not.
Thirdly, I suspect
That it
would not be good for my soul
To be
successful as a poet,
And
thus the good Lord spares me this.
Help me, help me, O Poet of Eternal Grace,
To delight
in the craft before me,
Whether
it renders forth my words
To be clumsy or sublime,
And if my poems might assist
Some troubled
soul, then use them there,
But
not for slaking the undying thirst
Of
my much-deluded vanity.
Thank you for my middling gifts,
Enough to
charm and oft to please
A few
close family and friends;
And let my poetry never be
A
temptation to idolatry,
No,
far from it:
Let my verse paint gold-leafed icons,
Holy
windows to Thy love,
And not the limited occlusion
Of
greatly-hailed masterpieces
That
ring with words of lyric bliss
But draw not our gazes unto Thee.