Fatherly Grief

In a mountain garden at time’s birth,
Lions with lambs played, as in a dream,
A river flowed forth watering the earth.
Then one awful act poisoned the stream.

A perfect son in that perfect lea
Raised his hand against the Perfect One,
And with one taste from the illicit tree
Man’s heart - and Heaven’s - came undone.

In ancient days on a mount called Moriah,
This grief of heaven was expressed.
For a trembling knife, raised, fell for ire;
Its target a bound and beating chest.

Yet with a call from heaven above
The deadly blade was not plied;
A father left learning of divine love,
Seeing in a ram “The Lord Will Provide.”

On the mount the prophets call Zion
In these last days a child, raised as His own,
All his days told of the Lamb now Lion,
Ruling upon His eternal throne.

Alas, the world’s dark waters beckoning,
Allured yet still another prodigal son.
A father left grieving, weeping, reckoning,
“Will horizon gazing ever be done?”

Yet to the top of Calvary’s knoll
The eye of faith must always return,
And know that pain is not a toll
Borne forever by those who yearn.

For on that day of darkness and quake
Earth itself spoke of the Father’s grief.
A veil ripped in two. O! The ache!
A twain message also promising relief.

So when the heavenly Jerusalem’s mount
Shall descend, then fill the earth,
No more tears! For there the fount
Will flow unpolluted with the new birth.

So for now, question’s verdict still unknown,
With hope in his own Father’s love he clings,
Each new dawn, he arises, but not alone,
Waiting to see what this day brings.