These Weary Bones

1

Your icy words drop like rain,
your sneers grind my bones to dust -
wingless thoughts drown between silences.
Your eyes reflect back an overgrown boy
they are the pit my pride goes to die.

2

I promise you I’ll come alive again,
And these bones will dance, and the flesh shall be strengthened.
And you shall see my smile as you’ve never yet seen it
Strong and radiant with tears bursting out
Alive in the shadows, and in the light
Dancing for the Lord, for his life for his light
For its radiance in all of you.

And unshackled my pleasure shall rise up like a song
Long restrained, shaky yet strong.
And you shall see the waves that you’ve long kept at bay
Break forth over the banks with unbounded grace.

3

And we shall sing and we shall feel and we shall heal
And we shall wash our weary feet in cool waters.
And learn again to swim and paddle and till
And have the shade and its enjoyment forever at last.
I promise you.

I promise you we shall be free.
Sons of Adam, we shall be free.
And the pure in heart and the meek shall precede us there
And we laden with blood shall be weary to enter.

4

A sinful heart courts the darkness,
And says to it, habibi.
And in their embrace they forget the sun
And desire to bury each other in the sand.

An ambitious heart cannot stand the joy of its brother.
It suffers not when afflicted, but when afflicted alone.
A sinful heart desires the world to burn with him,
Or to burn instead of him.

5

But even the greedy, and the ambitious, and the bloodied and the blinded
Shall not linger long outside of those gates,
For their siblings shall call to them,
And the delights of paradise shall call to them.
And the soul shall stay out in the cold as long as it needs
And the heat of that cold shall be fire and sulphur
And they shall sweat and weep for their unworthiness of happiness
And they shall seek to be rid of themselves.

Like babies with soiled diapers
So shall the wicked be on the righteous day of the Lord.
And they shall cry to him whom they pierced.
And he shall hear them for he is not mere man.
And he shall heal them for he is no mere man.
And they shall sing unto him for he is no mere man.
And the tears of the righteous shall be forgotten
As they welcome their long lost brothers into the land of Promise.
I promise you.

6

I promise you,
I shall laugh again.
Mind not my tears now.
They are but tears of longing not grief.
A longing for the grief to end.
They are memory and vision,
rapture,
reminiscence.
They are tears of solemn patience.
For there is a promise.

I promise you,
These weary bones shall dance again.