What You Would Say

12 August 2006, 1:17 AM

I can’t say I didn’t stop and wonder,
only that I didn’t stop as I wondered
(as if there was any question)
what You would say
if I asked.

I pushed and grasped for things not mine
and foiled a good gift You might have given;
foiled the good gift You could still have given
even as I realized what I missed in my grasping.
Even the thing grasped might end in blessing
if I let it.

And now, thwarted in every plan and gift,
the blessing may yet fall,
if I let it-

so now, “after the ruin has fallen,”
I will stop and I will ask
what You have to say about who I am
and who I’ve been tonight,
and though the blessing may strike
thrice the more painful for my struggling against
the answer I’ve known all along I’d receive,
I will receive, and in the pain
Your blessing will fall
as I let it.