Still at last.  The inner anger
having burst the bounds of reason,
I find all questions answered in
a breath.  And with the changing season
my mind is cleared of every past
desire and doubt.  For if at first
I thought this life would wind up best
in death, now I see the danger of
my sin, the cancer of my treason.

The senselessness I feared was all
my own invention: a blindness to
your order.  The strife: a lack of trust.
But now the fire is out, the tension
lifted.  And I'm without defense.

The worst of undergoing all
that pressure was losing track
of what I'm for.  I was wrong
to think myself the measure.  True,
I'm gifted.  But as a means
and not the ground of knowing.
Yet though I'm spent, I've no lack
of treasure.  Since I found the clue
to wonder, I belong to you.

--- Mahlon H. Smith

 

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* Author's note: This reflection on Job 42:1-5
was first published as a Christmas card
  (December 1972).

Author's sketch: Job Restored


Collected Poems
of
Mahlon H Smith

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all rights reserved