All My Love

What outcry here, what uproar now
Commands and calls such fury out?

An ark despised will bring to an end

To every type of plea and shout. 

Where tears run red and wails are long

To tear and rend from holy rage

No mind can know the end to come

Protective arms have now become a cage.

A chair, a neck, a brokenness

Accompanied by such alarm

Will bear out hate and hasty thoughts

Unless denied by heaven's arm.

Here look and contemplate belief

In any hope for present peace

Instead the lines are deeply drawn

While Unity will stare, will watch, will weep.

For where a doubt is flung on prayers

And readings take on sickly shades

All kindness flees from such a lamp

And trembling goodwill slowly fades.

Where all repentance is a play

To gain in power and prominence

Confession slyly hides the truth

That here shy hubris has a residence.

My mother said "The ark is lost!"

And there I stopped to count the cost

What use is there of holiness

But dimness and a nothingness?

For who am I and who is God

Where all my love is Ichabod?

(say at last I loved my failures

even those I didn't see

say at last I loved the darkness

say at last I loved the sea)

-----

cf. 1 Sam 4