Exile
Lent, 2020
Like the First Man we are cast out of Eden
and eastward driven. In this trackless waste
we grope for Sinai in gathering haste;
Unheeding, the world unrolls its season
of quickening Spring, and riotous blush of health.
But here we under a double hunger labour
forty nights—stripped of Heaven’s savour,
to endure the ache eternal in open stealth.
We wander witless in the borderland,
in halls of stone that ring with echoing space—
which once the bloodless slaughter did encase—
our penalty for careless heart and hand
that took the angel’s bread in dull contempt,
and bowing low before the laws of sense,
slew the Spirit by indifference.
This pilgrim people, unmoored and unkempt,
are only orphan children cast adrift,
or else are wailing Jews at crumbling walls.
But still the Master hangs in empty halls
and stays our ruin by His tender gift.
© 2020 Christ Centered Conversations/Jessica Goh