Poems of Beauty and Blessing 40: Heartsmith

Here’s another poem that came to me because of its first line. I just love the image of water running over stones and shaping them as it goes.

Heartsmith

As spills in sparkles a sunlit stream over sunken stones,

Smithing them to smoothness with its tumbling touch,

Rounding their roughness in its ruthless rushing,

While they lie long and let themselves be sculpted, little by little,

Till they gleam like jewels in the depths,

So the wild human heart, hardened by heat of hate and hurt,

Jagged with hidden jealousies and edged by envy, eater of all joy,

May be smoothed and shaped anew by hands more skilled

Than the scudding scrape of water and time,

To something soft yet adamantine in its strength,

And where it is polished by tears and hardship,

The lustre of love will dance dazzling from deep within,

And leap like flames to light the living world,

Spending itself as it spirals toward eternity.

Deo gloria! Deo gratias!