Volume > Issue > RHYTHM

RHYTHM

A POEM

By Susan Heyboer-O’Keefe | September 1985

You are the maker of maps,

Straight edge and compass in hand.

I am horizons unknown:

Lead they to ocean or land?

We meet upon lines of our chart

To puzzle out the sly and subtle art

Of marital intersection: heart to heart.

Quadrant by quadrant we move,

Plotting our course with such care —

Pen and ink symbols for love,

Paper for essence laid bare.

Life’s meaning is created by its frame

(For without rules, one cannot play the game),

And even love grows deeper for the same.

Yet on a night without stars,

Hope bids us break measured pace,

Yield to multiplied love,

Trustingly leap into grace.

Possessed

My God, I’m grieved to say it is not true:

Not true I desire naught…

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

I spent the night — I could not get to sleep —

In counting out…

Pain of Late Conversion

Have mercy, Lord, and by your blood

wash from my brain

the sly recurring pain

…