Changeling for Good

I carried that Spectre just under my heart.
Often, I saw him
He who once roamed an empty universe
now barely existing,
shrunk down to sleep,
and wait for election's call
to be fulfilled.
Dark--but he was accustomed to that;
Cramped--he was not accustomed to that;
Confined--blissfully different from all confinements
ever known before this one.
He was safe in this place within me.
As safe as my own thoughts and dreams anyway.
A sobering reality in my heart.
And so he became one not just with the Christ
but also with the Spirit.

I will not lie,
I had my moments of doubt.
If I were wrong, this was exactly the point
at which deception might give birth
to the trap
and he might try to kill me simply to see
what happens to him at my death.
A secret passage into the halls of heaven again
through the heart of a foolish woman.

But mostly, I remembered
I had not initiated any of these circumstances.
Mostly I realized he had actually been helping me--protecting me,
against the more real danger:
other soul invaders--for he expected others would try--
upon seeing his trailblazing,
might try to follow suit.
As long as he remained within, he was anathema to them.
My inner shield
...not just a sleeping marble in my gullet.


Sometimes, I'd wake him.
I would reach out to him with my soul--the part that can extend outside
or deep within me.
I'd reach within and meet his soul
and we would talk of love.
I would tells him what I see he has done for me.
"When did we begin to love this new kind of love?" I wondered.
"One dark night in eternity," he answered.
He was right.
Christ taught me to first see him,
later to have compassion though laced with a strain of fear,
finally to love,
but all came first from Christ through me.

I raised then a remembrance
of his moment of salvation--when he first believed,
and though I had not been with him,
(I only saw a hint of the magnificence,
the glory of his Davidic dance
in God's holy city)
yet I HAD been with him nonetheless.
For the substance of my love
--intangible in my reality but very real in his--
was the primal substance of that thing he hoped for
in his fledgling moments of faith.

His belief that he was loved

made me the kindling to Christ's fire

that marked the birth of his salvation--

his first revisiting with rejoicing, so long latent
categorically ignored.

Ecstacy of innocence, long abandoned
but now replaced by ecstacy of purity, long impossible.

So his heart swelled to meet mine in this new stature,

and I--

I began to travail.

I sent him forth.

Your spirit can expand with love,

so you must leave this place inside me and love larger,

love others--even as you love yourself now.

You must learn more--more than you can learn from within me.

So he soared out of me and flew into the night like a holy bird of prey

seeking what he might love.

And I...

I entered the garden where my Beloved waited for me.

Spring was coming, and we rested in the hidden recesses of a willow tree.