July 27–August 2 ❘ Restoration
Restoration
What the Lord reveals,
every new generation buries
beneath fresh layers of forgetting.
We raise walls of estrangement
between the urgency of now
and long-suffering history,
till the very elect are deceived,
our gray-granite temples
knocked stone from stone in a day,
outward desecration reflecting
the inward.
But was God never with us?
Israel knows that to be chosen
is to be chastened again
and again, to be stripped
of everything in preparation
for eternity.
We weep for what was lost
between shouts and songs
of praise for new foundations laid
because joy and sorrow are inseparable
as trough and crest of God’s surging,
white-capped wave.
Read more of my poetry at www.facebook.com/latterdaysaintpoetry
Contact me at merrijane.rice@gmail.com
