From the forest branches fading
birdsong offered
Self-sacrifice to a huge silence.
Dark formlessness settled over all
diversity
Of land and water.As shadows, as particles,
my body
Fused with endless night.I came to rest
At the altar of the stars.Alone, amazed,
I stared
Upwards with hands clasped and said,
"Sun, you have removed
Your rays: show now your loveliest,
kindlier form
That I may see the Person who dwells in
me as in you."
Not the prudent gates of Optimism,
Which are somewhat narrower.
Not the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense;
Nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness,
Which creak on shrill and angry hinges
(People cannot hear us there; they cannot pass through)
Nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of
"Everything is gonna' be all right."
But a different, sometimes lonely place,
The place of truth-telling,
About your own soul first of all and its condition.
The place of resistance and defiance,
The piece of ground from which you see the world
Both as it is and as it could be
As it will be;
The place from which you glimpse not only struggle,
But the joy of the struggle.
And we stand there, beckoning and calling,
Telling people what we are seeing
Asking people what they see.