Identity

Birth to breath,
Breath to voice,
Voice to Word,
Word to Love,
Love to Act,
Act to You.
Identity, birth anew.

How shall I pen
What wells forth,
From Creator to Creation,
The love that dwells within
Since my breath had begun?

Vision after vision, the Image–
The Gift that is His alone.
How can I not be impassioned–
To share with you as One?

He calls me; He tugs at me
To make anew a home,
To share with you a love,
One, in Him, that will never be undone.

This is what drives a man mad:
Not the image of the passing,
Of the imperfect lusts, the passing,
No, the vision, the beauty of the everlasting.

It sets in him a fire of devotion,
Turns his heart end over end in pure commotion,
Demands of him to turn over all,
To hold fast to what is true and what is beautiful.

The man loses not himself in this battle,
This battle of self and of love.
No, the man gains all
In this race of sacrificial love.

He conquers not; he fails not
In this battle to love.
He loses not his identity,
To love, with the Creator, the One.

It is in this very identity
That this man was once born,
But it is also the identity that, with the Other,
He shall pass to daughter and to son.

This is the identity that the Father gives the Son,
That I must do and I must follow,
To love You–only You–
With a heart made for One.