Who Will Teach You Now If You Don't Know

who will teach you now if you don't know
the soul can't bear a million blows.
the soul is made of snow.

I have heard canticles sung by the ages
to the One who made it so
the soul is fragile

setting out to sail, and slow
and full of dreams and
easily ripped apart

at the seams.
sometimes a human face
won't show the scars

but there they are, each one in its place
in God's full sorrowing view
so clear to His eye and

creased with every harrowing word
the soul on earth resembles to Him a bird
caught in the hunters' nets

how can it forget to grieve
sometimes it manages a brittle smile
for only a little while until

let fly let fly say the conspirators
who would break it down
before it's even been to town

before it has earned its stripes.
oh wipe the slate clean said Christ
while he was bowed down to the ground.

the soul is a fragile thing
until the soul is given wings
and that's a long time from now.

mary angela douglas 23 august 2017