Escape

A christian testimony in three sonnets

The Path in the Forest, Ivan Shishkin

The Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, “I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.”

Isaiah 56:8

I.
Stop. 
          I can't keep up this pace anymore.
My legs are shaking and it hurts to breathe
And everything, from my sore, heavy feet
To my aching head, feels blistered and scorched.
But my soul! torn apart by inner wars,
You're in worse shape. Consumed by self-hatred,
Is there hope for you? It's true what He said:
You are lost, hungry, naked, blind and poor --

Stop.
          Stop. 
                    No more. 
I cannot win this race.
I have lost all desire to even try.
I'll step away, into the dappled shade
Where He told me I'd find a resting place
and springs of water welling up beside
A better, though a narrow, upward Way.

II.
A better, though a narrow, upward Way
That leads me, sometimes through pastures of gold,
Sometimes through quiet woods and scented groves 
where streams of clear, cold water splash and play;
A better, though a narrow, upward road
That carves my way through canyons, shadowed deep
In pitchy dark, where pilgrims moan and weep
And I weep by their sides and bear their loads -- 

This road somehow has found its way within
me too, harrowing land long aridized,
so the sown seeds and sprouts and roots can grow
into fields yielding life where wastes have been;
The wilderness within made Paradise,
The closer His road brings me to my Home.

III.
The closer His road brings me to my Home,
The further I feel parted from my past,
I crave the things I know will stand and last --
The Truer, brighter world above the gloam.
Yet, for all I've walked, He still will not let
me leave the past behind. With each step, loud
and louder, I hear growls of the crowd
-- they are as I was, lest I forget.

And so the road I thought was my escape
Has led me to stand near the snare I'd flown;
Perhaps there might be one whom I can bring
Into the shade and to the waiting spring,
To whom I show what once to me was shown --
A better, though a narrow, homeward Way...

Path at Kalaloch Beach, photo by author

“Does the road rise uphill all the way?”

“Yes, to the very end.”

Christina Rossetti