Sculptor, Sculptor

Poem

A chisel is upon me chipping chipping, tiny tiny strokes on my periphery,
It gauged my mettle for anything brittle, In body and feeling and ranges of mind.
Oh but little taps like tickle tickle thought I; Wither this chisel upon me I wondered,
But who would question an unasked boon, so I let it proceed upon me uninterrupted.
Then I saw the hammer behind insistent, increasing its rhythmic strokes of force,
It grew and grew to a pitch of pain, woe woe cried I but allowed passage
And the hammer went at me as a Titan. But I saw after long years myself
In my musing’s mirror as a stranger with old traits worn and new ones born.
Ah, so the hammer did have a method, who wielded this I then wondered.
Then I glimpsed a hand light-formed and to it I appealed night and morn,
‘Wielder, wielder reveal to me now to what purpose am I shaped to?’
Only a silence was the answer ever to my pleadings and beseechings though.
After long years of hammerings where each day was as a lifetime
I glimpsed in high trance the outline of a great Shape, a mystic Form
That said all without uttering a word, so I understood I was indeed heard.
Now I don’t murmur much to the ways through desert and throughfare,
I walk in balance through daily roads with sight set on a hidden compass.
But at every dusk I leave a note at my being’s doors now left open,
“Sculptor, Sculptor, O Fashioner-Force, too high Thou art, a creative Might,
But little as I am and if I should shy from Thy hands of grace and light,
Only bind me to some will of Thine so I may reach the end of Thy plan.
And seated by Thy feet both of us may say, ‘Yes, this is the Life Divine!’”

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Sculptor, Sculptor