These are the words of the first and the last
who holds the seven stars in his right hand.
The cloudless mornings now are overcast
and the first light of your golden lampstand
though not yet a shade, now darkens, dwindles.
You know the heft of love and quiet work;
know again the one who in you kindles
fire from driftwood and conjures from this murk
a light to banish shadows and the wraiths
that lurk therein. Do as you did at first
in the hour of your first love, first faith;
as an infant looks to the one who nursed
her through the long night, trust, come, draw near.
Those who have ears to hear, let them hear.
Other Bible stories from Moss Kingdom:
The Cain Series: The Birth of Cain, The Crime of Cain, The Curse of Cain
Old Testament: Some He Bruises, Some He Bleeds: A Sestina on the Covenants, Noah Wakes from a Recurring Nightmare, Abram the Pagan, For the Sake of the Few, The Deception of Jacob, The Unspeakable Name, A Sound of War in the Camp, A Lament for Michal, The Rape of Tamar and the Half-life of Joy, Numbered Numbered Weighed Divided: a Rubaiyat concerning Belshazzar’s doom, Jonah, The Years the Locusts have Consumed
New Testament: What need has He for our Democracy: A poem for Peter during his lapse, Silent Saturday, Does God still have a body?, At Simon’s House
The Letters to the Churches:
Apocalypsis, Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea