Anxiety
I haven’t written poetry in years. This morning I wrote a poem. Photo: A pond, dock, and cooler on Nantucket island. Summer 08.
ANXIETY
I quit you
False lover
We’ve known each other a long time
I can’t remember how we met
Has it been 30 years?
Did you promise me, or was it I who made promises to you?
You never deliver
False, faithless friend
I put my trust in you
Your reasoning made sense to me:
Worry about this, be anxious about that
Obsess and fret on these things
And all shall be well, figured out, under control
You liar!
Your reasoning unravels
You’ve lost your luster
I’m being wooed by a new lover
He speaks a better word
I couldn’t hear it before
Too drunk I was
Choosing to sip your sneaky cocktails
Making myself a god,
Usurping the throne
Your lying logic runs that deep
I quit you
False lover
A new lover speaks
“I tell you, do not be anxious about your life”
I was blind to the voice
I didn’t realize who spoke those words to me
“I tell you”
“I” ?
Who speaks this command?
Who issues this invitation?
Who dares?
Who can say such words?
Then I saw him
And everything changed
“I tell you,” says Jesus
“I tell you,” says the second member of the Triune
“I tell you,” says the One who designed me
“I tell you,” says the God-man, come from high heaven to this anxious earth
“I tell you,” says the Savior who sweat blood for me
“I tell you,” says Immanuel, who is with me
“I tell you,” says Wise Christ, who knows all things
“I tell you,” says King Jesus, who reigns and rules over all things,
today and tomorrow and forever
These are his words
“I tell you,”
“do not be anxious about your life”
Jesus speaks against you, anxious Anxiety
I have a new love
A new lover
He has taken my trust away from you
Anxiety, I quit you
False lover
Batter My Heart
This morning I prayed one of my favorite poems, John Donne’s Holy Sonnet XIV:
Batter my heart, three-person’d God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
John Donne: Holy Sonnet XIV
One of my favorite poems is John Donne’s Holy Sonnet XIV:
Batter my heart, three-person’d God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
