09 Dec Touch Me Not
Posted at 23:02h
in Poems
His “Touch me not” had surprised me, a rebuke not known
As He once welcome remiss sinners to arms held wide;
Is the world different, this garden as that rolled stone,
As words I repeat since my Rabbouni died:
The will to never repent, sloth, was the first thing gone,
For the good works of the Lord God all demand due zeal.
A refined hope in the bright powers herald new dawn,
For diligent hands purpose for one ideal.
The appetites of the flesh, which I had once gave part,
Were the next banished, for once passion, the sheer plunge, calms,
Be it one’s brothers who trade lusts of the wayward heart
Were scandal and sin, thus I return with alms.
And to indulge or consume full and beyond one’s need
For the base pleasure itself, eager to gulp down food;
An exchange granted for drunk revel, I shall not heed,
For now I indulge God in my gratitude.
An envious and the hard heart will depart this day
If a drowned-jealous and warped mind has no goodwill end,
In the last judgment, I know what is the one clear way
If one had the world once, or had called Him friend.
O avarice, chartreuse demon, the bare soul’s debt,
As the blood chills in pursuit over a thing not owned,
So I live not for the dead treasures I might need yet
As only I seek penance before His throne.
So the same said to the hands folded in ill-dealt wrath,
In its wrought anger a soul finds in its grave deep still,
Oh the pain ringing in warm horrors, my own dark path,
In mercy my hopes lie for the Father’s will.
And you last-born of all sins, glory in man’s own gain,
At a man’s hubris, I scoff, vanity yields man toward
An abyss ever-remote; evil repeats this pain,
“At once I become nothing without the Lord.”
He said responding to me, “Wait, for I shall come yet,
A select day for the last judgment; and still comes this:
The elect eat of My flesh once I ascend, thus set
A marvelous gift – this is the Eucharist.”