As The Ruin Falls

Lewis-Keaggy

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you
I never had a selfless thought since I was born
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love --a scholar's parrot may talk Greek--
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains