Fragility and Faith

From Richard Roberts (from 2014)

‘Be true to yourself’ the moral queens say
There’s no other Higher or Better foray
No duty to harken or summon to call
But interest of Self and seared conscience withal
 
Yet what wisdom flows from this stagnant infirm
This frame that succumbs to miniscule germ
With skin that is pierced by the simplest straw
And falters at winds or the water’s full draw?
 
Can this soul break the sun and its withering heat
Or wrangle the cold and submit it to beat
Back the ice that breach trickling channels of blood
Or heap up the seas into bundles of flood?
 
I am but a frailty of lightless disgrace
Emboldening violence with wanton embrace
No command to halt all of Nature’s desires
Arrogance, stubborn and quickening, tires
 
Be true to myself with no power at all
The one who can’t seize any honor or call
Which would bring any good to this cosmos or sphere
But the tribute of futile and foolhardy fear?
 
This darkness of truth sets such a glowering stage
Erupting in radiant luminous grace
Enlightened against all the blackness and dross
Shines love condescending to height of a cross
 
Your glory, O Soul, is not of your own
He sets His heart on the dead who respond as a stone
To make them alive by His sovereign grace
And call them, "Beloved", with warming embrace