From a Christian in Exile

From a Christian in Exile

Do not think me cold of heart
if I decline to kneel before your God.
For I may pass within my mind,
into another room
and find its walls have given way
to vastness such, that if a man
before a throne were there, then he
would draw his hands before his eyes
in order not to see--my ecstasy
is by default...the rooms,
the rooms give plunder to the heart.

There are mansions in my father's house,
and still undreamed,
prepared by still another Lord
who will not wait for death,
imparts no benediction, just a place within
where time will drift away, and love creeps in.

The Savior knew about the lonely place
--led us there in life, and not by dieing;
(There were crosses quite enough
to teach us all of sacrifice) our salvation
trumpet sounded on a silent shore
before a stranger kingdom
than the one we knew,
before the outrage of a second birth,
before the blazing tumult
of a Galilean peace.
~