October

This is the poem I was working on yesterday, after some more work today. I'm not sure that it's finished yet; nor is quite where I am, though it does perhaps represent one version of me at this time. I've used a rhyming structure that deliberately opposes the first and last quartets.

Was Jesus really tugging at my sleeve

that crazy autumn day so long ago,

my collar turned against the cooling wind,

my tears mixed with the soft October rain?

And so in hope a journey was begun;

I set myself in faith the race to run.

And now I trace it back through tumbling years

that score the lines of laughter, tracks of tears,

recall my sense of purpose, truth and call,

recall as well my stumbling step, my fall.

The gold once grasped turned into dust and waste,

the fruit when plucked no longer sweet to taste.

And so, beset by fears I can’t explain,

more sinned against than thinking I had sinned,

I turn aside from paths I used to know;

I’m running short of things I can believe.