It’s no use to stoke the coals of my discontent
with the damp leaves of weak desires.
My prayers are not the incense in its swirling ascent;
they are the sticky haze of the still-green brier’s
blaze, and I am smothered in the smoke.
I long still to be absorbed by choirs of angelic tongues
yet with each stifled shallow breath I choke.
Oh for a song so loud it would force this poison from my lungs!
Lord, will you come to make me one enthralled?—
let one true note rise above the numb?
For my faith cannot be conjured, only called
and some flashing, fickle traitor I’ve become.
Command Lazarus from his stinking grave;
make him alive, a savior’s happy slave.
 |
| Lazarus Sleeping – Franciszek Zmurko, 1877 |