My Father’s Grace
Luke 15:11-32
Piercing words cast, hard, like stones;
Frail arrogance, anger~masked,
Lessened not his heart~felt groans
As brittle Love lay unasked.
Vanquished Grace in crippling bounds,
Stiletto~words carved deep wounds
That bled Hope’s last and dying breath
Each one,
Each one,
Inflicting death.
Confusion snarled the Father’s thought;
Strangled speech died still, unborn
As words took flight, never caught
And guts filled taut with barb and thorn.
From distance far, Peace called his name,
To now indwell, to calm the flame.
Then croaking question, strangely said,
“But why?”
“But why?”
Rang with dread.
“No more, no more,” the Son’s cold word,
“Can I live here in cloistered home,
Your rules, your Faith, all too absurd.
I need to seek, to run, to roam,
To live my life, do what I please,
Ascend the heights, traverse the seas,
To see, to learn, to feel, to spend
My life,
My love,
At rainbow’s end.”
Father’s Heart clenched, dropped a beat.
He searched for breath, could naught but pant.
Then spoke in words devoid of heat,
“Tell me, Son. What do you want?”
As stormclouds hold approaching rain
Did muted tongue thus feel restrain.
As from afar, the shamed reply:
“My lot,
My due,
To say goodbye.”
“You cannot meet my eyes, my Son,
You try, then fail, cast to the ground,
Encompass sky, then clouds, then sun;
Your shame enfolds you all around.
It need not be, this path you choose,
I know it is but Satan’s ruse.
Your due, you say, your vaunted goal,
How much,
How much,
To make you whole?”
“Ten thousand now, enough, I think,
To take me where I yearn to be,
With friends and food and wine to drink,
And charming girls who come to me
To bring me joy and pleasured peace,
Each night to know love’s sweet release.
For me, the women, they will come,
At night,
Each night,
Heartstrings to strum.”
The Father turned, went to their home;
With haste, came back with compassed purse.
“Here, take this, Son. You’re free to roam.
Go quickly now, for good, for worse.
Be you gone one year or nine,
Remember … you’re a Child of mine,
And take you, too, within your heart,
My Love,
My Love,
While we’re apart.”
A mask of scorn taints doubt-filled glance;
He takes his due from proffered hand ~
Ah! Means to own great Heaven’s dance
And prized delights both fond and banned!
My heart awakes at what’s to come!
I’ll eat it up, leave not a crumb!
I’m going now, to seek the brim
Of life,
My life!”
His shallow hymn.
Father’s arms reach to enfold,
A final time, a last farewell.
He ripped away, the Son left cold
An old man’s Soul to hear the knell
Of riven hopes and dreams suborned
By convocation, now deformed.
His heart, his life, now bereft
By loss,
By void …
The Father wept.
Servants watched at what had been
Wept to themselves awhile therein
As they reflected deep chagrin:
Mene tekel upharsin.
At city’s edge, he sought his friends,
Those to whom he’d voiced his plaints,
(None of which spoke truthful ends);
“Look at me! I’ve no restraints!”
He held aloft his untried gain,
Cheered, “Here am I, I’m Heaven’s bane!
Look this, my friends! Raise your glass!”
They drank,
They sang,
As hollow brass.
Gaily now do Cyprian’s greet,
Tempting-clad in sensuous flesh,
Free to share salacious heat
Entwined, enmeshed in Pan’s own crèche.
Played with glee seduction’s games
Oblivious to the player’s names.
Cocottes’ ply lust’s sweet dulcitone
With breast,
With thigh
For precious stone.
Now shut of all the strictured rules
The stifling love, the tedious chores.
His promenade? The Walk of Fools;
His nightly sleep, the bed of whores.
Of flowing wine, there was no end ~
After all, ‘twas his to spend~
His future life … the world to own,
Evermore,
Ad sum …
Where’s the throne?
Endless nights, languid days,
Revelry’s insouciance ~
Artless means, slipshod ways
Lent myth to wealth’s endurance.
Denying truth that’s known to all,
Debauch~ed life then broke its thrall
As gold now took at last its leave,
So friends,
So lovers …
End make~believe.
When once the spark of sin’s new gloss
Subsided, leaving want of more,
He could not bear the sense of loss
And entered in sins’ deeper door.
There dark of night could not obscure
Evil’s fine~drawn sinecure,
Yet once therein he failed to stay:
Too base,
Too vile,
For transgression’s protégé.
Shame’s unrelenting scars
Lacerate remembered sin
Butchering with scimitars
Remember fondly wine and skin.
Guilt bombards reluctant mind;
Faustian promise has been signed.
Die is cast, hope has fled
Too soon,
Too far,
Is this Soul dead?
Ashen dusk to softened dawn
Finds the Father, woebegone;
Long road before, his Rubicon,
Watching, watching for his Son.
Bitter streets, beds of stones,
Familiar now, bruised and cold
And broken Heart, wounded bones,
Can hear Hope ’s deep knell tolled.
Sycophants, long since gone,
Abandoned him to sorrow’s song.
Desolate, without design,
He knelt
And bowed
Obeisance to his darkling shrine.
Ebon thoughts, fears a~warped,
O’er days and nights, for incubi,
Exquisite revenants, sat escarped
Upon his mind to terrify.
Cirrus dreams appeared, then stormed
Once~held sanity, now deformed.
“My wish,” he cried, “is that I cease
To be,
To be,
And find death’s Peace.”
Gutter~wash and garbage~fall
Small succor these, for sustenance
Of life, of limb, of Spirit’s spall,
Or of his mortal dissonance.
Perplexed, awash in wasted spate,
Midst detractor’s castigate,
This desperate one reached out, at last
For Hope,
For Faith;
To end Heart’s fast.
He left the city deep of night,
Walked until he could but fall.
Prostrate, yet a proselyte
Of Hope’s clear clarion call.
“O, help me, God,” came his faint Prayer;
“Too long I’ve dwelt in Satan’s snare.”
Morning found him near a farm
For shoats,
For hogs;
Miasma held but little charm.
“You’ll tend the pigs,” the farmer said,
“And eat their food, the same as they.
Be glad you’re more alive than dead,
And have such need, the likes of me,
Far more than I of you.”
Such was his sad debut.
“Amid this stink, here I shall dwell,
With mud
And slop,
… A different hell.”
Pallid dusk to waxen dawn
Finds the Father in despond;
Long road before, his Rubicon,
Watching, waiting for his Son.
It was not long, one day or so,
Ere the reek of dung-soaked mire
Steeped him in its reeking flow,
Began to stifle his soul~fire.
Carob pods on which to dine;
These, he shared with fellow swine.
Nor was it long before his mien
Resembled pigs,
Pigs, indeed ~
Habitué obscene.
At this time came forth anew
Inklings of his deeds gone wrong,
Dim memories, vague residue
Of sin’s soft-clanging gong;
Recalling exploits best forgot …
Wishing they had gone to naught.
“What have I done?”, now penitent,
“What wrongs,
What sins
Rule my descent?”
His glimmer~hope abated pale,
Tarnished in the porcine stain.
Although it foundered, set to quale,
Retained its spark, failed to wane.
“I’ll not give in, I’ll not succumb ~
Too foul, this delirium.
I’ll keep my life, this seed of Hope,
Neophyte,
Novitiate,
In God’s precious turning trope.”
Lissome dusk to vivid dawn
Sees the Father ashen, drawn;
Long days behind, dreams undone,
Hoping, yearning for his Son.
Extracting out from farmyard dreg
The Son began to walk, to muse,
“Where must I go? What must I beg?
To what low depth shall I reduce?”
Nomad thoughts came now to mind,
Of new and questing kind,
Two of which did give him pause:
Home …
And Father …
Welcome cause.
“The servants of my Father’s home
Have better lives than I possess
Far better than this catacomb
That I’ve built from my excess.
Perhaps I could become of them,
Footnote to ad hominem,
Vapid, sad cupidity
Haste
Made waste.
Fallow, vain stupidity.”
Gloaming dusk to bright’ning dawn
Heralds Father’s Avalon;
Long nights elapsed, now halcyon ,
Watching, wanting for his Son.
Anxiously, the Father stands
At road~head now, in sunlight full
Awaiting stray Son’s late remands,
The once~held schism now annul.
Holding words, wont to impart
With welcome hands and warming heart,
The Father’s joy is plainly seen.
Soon, now,
Soon, now,
Ends Son’s peregrine.
Horizon breaks on silhouette
Of head and shoulders, disquiet face
Betraying doubt and fear, and yet
Prepared now to bow, abase
His spent life before his Sire:
“Have I Peace or funeral pyre?”
Cautiously, on he kept,
Father … ?
Father … ?
To knees, he wept.
The Father saw and thus did know
The Heart of his Beloved one.
As his own did surge and grow,
Cried out aloud, “My Son, my Son!
Joy is mine, here, now, and more,
A brimming cup from which does pour
The very Love contained within
My Heart,
My Soul,
Turned crystalline.”
“Father, pray, forgive my sins
Against our Lord, ‘gainst you as well.
For all too long, against the winds
Of God, I made my very hell.
As supplicant, now I do come
To pay obeisance to your home,
And to your Soul, I bow, I kneel
In shame,
In guilt,
‘Til death~bells peal.”
Adoringly, his Father’s hand
Lifted up this wretched one.
“Come with me, arise and stand,
You’re home again, your journey’s done.”
Father’s arm on shoulders blessed
His Soul, his Heart within his breast.
Undeserving of this grace,
And yet,
And yet,
He knew Love writ upon his face.
There in the strength of Love’s embrace
The Son at last knew truth in full,
Expressed in Joy on Father’s face
Which in youth he did annul.
“You have Loved me all these years,
Forgive me, Father, for the tears
You shed onto my vanity
That heal,
Restore,
Forfeited humanity.”
Blessed Peace that never leaves
Now came softly to his Heart
Giving now Love’s warm reprise
And gracious tidings to impart.
“O my Father, Papa, mine,
To know your Love, the anodyne
That stills my soul,
Gives rest,
Gives rest,
And makes me whole.”
“Strike the fires! Prepare the food!
Bring forth the calf, the fattened one,
For we shall feast, as well we should!
My Son’s returned! My Son! My Son!
He once was lost and now he’s found!
Bring the robe! He shall be gowned!
My signet ring, bring with good speed!
My ring!
My seal!
My Son’s alive, alive indeed!”
By the fire, late at night,
Father, Son, sat side by side,
Speaking little, lest they slight
The precious Peace near to abide
In Heart and Soul, enriched by Love ~
Not unlike a lambent dove.
As slumber neared, their tranquil rest
Foretold,
Revealed
How they were Blessed.
The Son, alone, before his sleep
Immersed in Prayer gave thanks profuse
That blessed his Soul so as to weep.
“Here am I without excuse,
A legacy of naught but wind,
Of vain crafts I now rescind,
But for my Father’s Love
His Love,
His Love,
I knew not of.”
“Awakened to things Eterne,
Delivered of sin’s catacomb,
No longer bleak and taciturn
I’ve realized, at last, my Home.
My Father’s Love bestows me Grace
Thus, my life now do I place
In care of One I must regale,
Whose Love,
Whose Grace
Will never fail.
The Father comes to take his rest.
“Rejoice, my Heart, within my breast!
The wandring’s done, the final quest.
My Son’s come home. I am Blessed.
Amor vincit omnia.