The Riddle
Nascent
I am lifeless but not dead,
Dead and yet alive.
I make the grave my bed
And lay my head on knives.
Filled, I ache with cravings,
And still I know not why.
I feel as if I’m breathing
Yet soon to suffocate and die.
Here in this cavern’s bowels
The only echo that I hear
Is my voice with few clear vowels,
Crying out in hopeless fear.
Slowly, I feel myself passing,
But where to I cannot tell.
My heart — no longer pounding —
Only trembles at life’s final knell.
Softly I sense a piercing:
A spear of light enters my world.
I behold around me a glistening,
As of a smooth crimson pearl.
Pain rushing over me like a flood,
I see for the first time my pool of blood.
This light here condemns me to death
And, by doing so, reveals my one hope.
Whispering out, I expel my last breath
And catch a melodious note:
“Come forth,” it hums. “Arise. Arise!”
Compelled, I go in the strength it supplies,
Following only my now-open eyes.
A strange sensation: in bondage, I’m free.
I feel within a wind untamed,
Like a different person helping me,
Yet with him the same.
And still I find yet another surprise —
Chains falling off me,
Fetters of my own devise.
I begin to know what it means to see.
Once I thought this cave was joy.
No more!
I find it was only a ploy
To keep me locked behind death’s door.
Though once I had been dead,
I now am dead and dying.
And though “I live!” I said,
I now am raised and rising.
Closer, I approach the veil of dawn
And view green grass upon the lawn.
Step by step I’m drawing near
And see that man I love so dear —
His the voice that wakened mine
That I might come and with him shine.
My foot upon the grass alights,
My eyes mesmerized by this ocean of light!
The breeze upon my face I feel;
I can’t but on my knees here kneel.
The air pours in my lungs,
A gift I’ve never known.
O, for a thousand tongues:
No more am I alone!
Shadow
But still I sense a kind of shadow
Created by this expansive sea,
As if perceived in a mirror dimly
Or itself encased in a cave of stone.
I feel the ground beneath me tremble,
Asking, waiting, to be reassembled.
But that man — he beckons me on,
Leading me to an endless stream.
He bids me go in that my filth be gone —
Not to cleanse myself but to be washed clean.
So I enter this torrent that would tear me apart,
That this flood might now restore my heart.
What a power! What a change!
It effectively works to destroy my shame.
But as I step upon the bank,
How odd to find a crystalline brook.
Within its power I nearly sank;
Indeed, some old life of mine it took.
It’s as if its power is not in power
But more like a quiet rain shower.
This water, like a crystal, no other can break;
No other can reduce or, its value, take.
Reboot
An echo, echo, far away —
From within or without I cannot tell.
I resonate with its constant sway;
I hear the fear once more of hell.
My heart, now pounding, moves me toward
That which thrusts through me a sword.
That cry cuts deep into my breast,
So where, so where, is that voice of death?
Though led, I know not where I go.
Though going, I know not if I’m led.
And yet I know that both are so;
I only follow him who bled.
But though I follow, I see him not.
At moments, I sense his steps I take
As if he leads by inward trot.
Are regressive steps his by mistake?
I’m drawn back to the starting line:
A world of death, my first design.
Is this from where that echo came
And now a smell of skin aflame?
— Yes, I hear that shrill voice cry,
Louder and softer, a crescendo that dies.
But its words are muffled low,
Captive in that tomb below.
The abyss from which this soul was drawn,
From there it is I hear this song.
But I fear, oh fear, to re-enter this cave
Yet know I am now a different slave.
A conflict wages war within,
A test: Will I go in?
If in the light only I stand,
And enter not into that world,
And if I help not with my hands
Those weak and poor, alone and atwirl,
Then in that black void still I dwell,
For the light rescues from hell.
Hell in body, hell in soul,
Assaulting both must be my goal.
There’s something that happens within
That makes one hate the curse of sin.
For one cannot stay for long with him
And not want their chains, too, broken.
A light, I step back in,
One last breath to catch again.
To hear it I here strive,
And this is what it says:
“I am lifeless but not dead,
Dead and yet alive.”
