THE CONTEXT:
Following my reversion to the Catholic Church, I found myself in a deep intimacy with God, journeying through the wilderness of my life. At certain times during these travels, I felt called to sit down and put to pen these words which have captured my story — the story of the Prodigal Son — and the story of so many others as well.
THE POEM:
How my heart, it longs to know
Who my hands are working hard for,
and why my mind feels so lost and alone.
Yet the light it shineth through the leaves of this autumn plain,
And down to my heart so far from home.
“Can you see, have you seen?
How my heart cries out to thee,
Evenstar, far above this ground below?
Far below. Like deer by stream, like watchers of night,
I long for the breaking of this hardened heart’s plight!”
How my mind it longs to know,
how my mind came to its own,
and why my feet now go down long forgotten roads!
Yet, through plains and rocky streams, a new thing I have seen,
shadows fleeing from the growing eastern green!
How my hands they long to know,
why my heart it presses on.
For how can I know he’ll forgive these forsaken bones?
Yet, a western wind, driving easterward ‘cross this land,
guides my trembling heart far off from my home.
How my eyes they long to know
who’s the man on down the road,
runnin’ ‘long paths and through wild shaded groves.
Yet the light it shineth through the leaves of this autumn plain,
on through my father’s heart so far from our home.
© Copyright 2023 Trenton Scroggins. All Rights Reserved.
