The Becoming

I breathe in The Becoming
Who breathed into me
In the beginning, changing
A corner of eternity.

I glimpse The Becoming
As through a glass darkly.
The color is still true
And bright enough to see.

I hear The Becoming
In a small voice that I perceive
Sending me toward daring
With assurance I believe....

He is imaging again
The dream that He did not duplicate,
The secret that He reserved
To bring to me and intimate.

In the night,
He is flame again,
Refusing to let die
What He began.

A road in a dream
Straightens along the way
Toward the familiar sound of music
In a faintly stirring day.

In the cold,
A tree the color of fire
Blanketed seed on hard ground
So the new stand will spring to life.

Death's color was bold
But still served the cause
Of regenereation; the snow
Wept brith waters from its thaw.

In this awakening,
Green comes softly through intimidation
Of stony earth; wings of butterflies unfold like hopes
Stirring from the still chrysalis of imagination.

Wrapped in all of this reminder
Against the threat of futility,
I defy the doom of tormentors
To see, hear, and believe.

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This piece started with the image of the chrysalis in Stanza 9. I wrote it with a certain human condition in mind: opposition so fierce and persistent that leads to a crossroad of trying to go on despite the weariness, or giving up and going down in despair. Nature itself teaches us that, on this earth, the trappings of death can actually be part of the mechanism that brings new life, and shouldn't cause us to cast aside all hope that God can indeed do a new thing. Here, He's represented as The Becoming, on the presumption that the information that I received on The Becoming One being a more accurate translation of I AM THAT I AM is correct. The imperative of life and creation still prevails in the end.

I think it's ironic that the inspiration first came in autumn (I encountered the tree casting maroon leaves in the cold wind not long after the first image developed), and it finally all came together and insisted on being written right before spring. Although I've got some discomfort with the cadence of the poem, I think the message is important enough to pass on, however imperfectly it may be packaged.

"I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." John 12:24