Poem

WRATHFUL DEVOTION
by Jennifer Welwood

You gave me a heart that ignites
In the passionate knowing of you,
And having burned in that heat
Is not drawn to lesser fires.

You gave me a mind that expands
To encounter your vastness,
And finds in those fathomless depths
Its own luminous nature.

You gave me a soul that won't rest
With any barrier to you,
Be it heavy and dense
Or gossamer as a veil.

You gave me an old structure
Made up of my history;
It is heavy and dense,
It is gossamer as a veil.

I meet it, allow it, explore it
And still it grinds on,
A machine that relentlessly churns out
Old patterns and tendencies.

I embrace it, dissolve it, release it --
Still it keeps reincarnating,
Rising up from some ancient template
Held deep in my bones.

I don't begrudge you your sense of humor,
Beloved trickster,
But I do wonder, now and then,
What you have in mind.

Did you make me to realize a freedom
I can't fully embody?
Do my heart and soul burn for a truth
That I can't fully live?

I commune with you in the heavens --
It's not hard to find you there;
But I need you down here,
In the marrow of my bones.

You can't turn away now -- stay here;
I will have this out with you.
You started something with me,
And now I want it finished.
Yes -- I will wrestle with you on this one,
Beloved torturer;
I will wrestle you all the way down
To the very ground

And not rest till I stand
With the soles of my feet upon you,
And not rest till I feel you infuse
My every cell.