I had hung up my harp
but my God still demands a song.
How can I draw a note I asked
my heart within grown cold.
I have weighed justice and mercy
until mercy has hardly registered,
and bitterness become a weight
that kept me counting my losses.
But we are asked to hold all things lightly.
Despair and hope can both draw notes
in hands that recognise the qualities
of height and depth, light and dark needed to make music.
Have you hung up your harp?
Will you take it up again with me?
Together we can extract the gold
we can yet mine from sorrow.
And hope can rise from the ashes of today
to make a brand new song.
Together we can draw meaning from all
that befalls us, good or ill.
We have stilled our hearts,
but God can thaw the fingers which refuse to bend.
Until they move again,
as dancers on the strings,
of harps, which because of hope we have taken down.
Because hope, unlike anything else we encounter
springs eternal in our souls;
that we might each, always have a song.
Ana Lisa de Jong
September 2017
Image: Flickr (free to use)
Living Tree Poetry 