Inflated Self Deflated

‘Be true to yourself’ the moral queens say

There’s no other Higher or Better foray

No duty to harken or summon to call

But interest of Self and seared conscience withal

Yet what wisdom flows from this stagnant infirm

This frame that succumbs to miniscule germ

With skin that is pierced by the simplest straw

And falters at winds or the water’s full draw?

Can this soul break the sun and its withering heat?

Or wrangle the cold and submit it to beat

Back the ice that breach trickling channels of blood

Or heap up the seas into bundles of flood?

I am but a frailty of lightless disgrace

Emboldening violence with wanton embrace

No command to halt all of Nature’s desires

Arrogance bowing with quickening tires

Be true to myself with no power at all

The one who can’t seize any honor or call

Which would bring any good to this cosmos or sphere

But the tribute of futile and foolhardy fear

This darkness that sets such a glowering stage

Shows glorious colors of the Author’s bright grace

Illumined against the blackness and dross

Shines the love condescending to the height of the cross

Your glory, O Soul, is not of your own

He sets His heart on the dead who respond as a stone

To make them alive by His sovereign grace

And call them, "Beloved", with warming embrace

7-14-14