Emmanuel

there are too many thoughts in my head

they clamor for attention and absorb me

until i walk dream-bound, haze-shrouded

seeing only shadows beyond my walls

so i drove through the fog this morning

mist mysteriously cloaking the world

as i sang minor-key remembrances

of Your coming. i wandered between

joy and sadness, among gladness

and resigned apathy and cynical bitterness

my nose pressed up against windows onto

a world i don’t believe is real but long

to inhabit — a world not written for me.

i looked at the myrrh i thought i’d already

given to You, an offering of sacrifice

i vacillated between glory and irritation

though such an attitude is far from holy

“don’t You see,” i could’ve been saying

“all i want is You — on my own terms.”

who am i to demand such a thing?

the lowest of the low, the dirtiest of the dirty

not fit to be bothered with pulling from a pit

ravenous for soul-twinned intimacy

terrified if anyone comes too close

but You let the cords of death encompass You

to pull me out into Your life

You laid aside Your majesty and became nothing

to deliver me from the nothingness of thinking

i was supreme fixer of the galaxies

You dispersed the gloomy clouds of night

and cried hope into the darkness

even so, Emmanuel, come again to me.