God how I yearned for you
after the floods
how you haunted me
breaking under the waves
night after night
the tears cried for you
knees aching on the hard stone floor
the beads said
cold under my fingers
light perpetual on your face
no consolation
but God is merciful
(tainted with irony, but merciful)
and you were my gift
brought back
in the long watches of the night
to walk through my door like Elijah
and I had set you a place
it would seem ungrateful to complain
with you under my hands
under me
in some sick way spared
consigned to my desperate kisses
corn bread
all my promises and praise
(when none of it
could hold a candle
to that light)
Mairi Graham-Shaw
© 2012
Image links to its source on Wiki Commons
"Prophet Elijah in the Desert"[between 1464 and 1468] - Dieric Bouts
public domain
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