Faith
A POEM
Trellised clouds upwards towards
earth’s moon
Set within a night-dome
of deep blue,
Waves breaking repetitive
and mighty along
sand-shores of Mind,
the Wind at liberty
to exhort and soothe
the torn Heart,
Island Lights distant
and mysterious across
seven miles of salt sea,
a young man on a screened-in
cottage porch above the beach,
his eyes racing, reflective,
to behold the one face
of his Creator,
nakedly paces the corridors
of sight,
in darkness lights a cigarette,
and drunk on the beer
of his abandon,
stares out across Time
to the beginnings of the world
and the fall of man.
And once what has been
has become what is,
and once the chain reaction
of God’s human history
has been followed to its source
in mortal hearts,
a quiet and yet relentless faith
in what must be abides
in the young man’s frightened eyes.
Reborn to his own lost courage,
nourished, sustained, and preserved
by images of a desert wind and Him
who walked through it
to a triumphant crucifixion on a hill
outside Jerusalem,
the young man sees the object of his faith
coming towards him across the water.
Amazed and terrified, lost in light,
he flies to the beach,
and steps out across the waves
to be blessed by his Master.
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Many of Vanauken’s poems are reminiscent of Browning, Donne, the early Charles Williams, and others, in style, tone, and theme.
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