RESTLESS SPIRIT

RESTLESS SPIRIT

My body’s a prison with iron wrought bars,
My spirit’s a skylight that leads me to stars,
Over the black velvet darkness I fly,
The heavens alight and unfold to my eyes.

Spirit is colorless, odorless, spirit moves free,
Unlike the landlocked woebegone me.
I can get torn and tossed over all I have lost,
Or soar with the saints and the Trinity,
It’s Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
The fruits of the spirit I treasure the most,
They are the beacons of light on my journey.

And give me the grace to make music and sing,
To ride the unicorn to Saturn’s wing,
To join the bright planets and the whirling constellations,
To make this restless spirit yield to innovation.
To not fight on past the point of no return,
To gather up the dusty lessons I’ve learned,
And mount my flaming steed to the burning skies,
To answer the saints and their beckoning cries.

To not be afraid of the land past the rainbow,
To gather my courage in droves,
And walk with the Savior in his garden of flowers
At my life’s great epic close.
To go skinny dipping through the stars,
To shed this earthly cloak,
And vanish like ether in a wooden wisp of smoke.

Goodbye to the earth below, goodbye to those who loved me.
I join the Boatman in his schooner, sailing toward eternity.
Out beyond the glorious sunset, and those purplish clouds at close of day,
Nothing left to keep me here, nothing standing in my way.

Goodbye to my lover, I will miss you most of all,
And all the tender mercies that from your lips did fall.
The feel of your flesh and the taste of your kiss,
That lent to me your golden bliss,
Your touch oh how it tingled, my skin it did enthrall.
But we all know it’s time to go,
Into that cool, bright tunnel of air,
Where all the spirits that have gone before,
Beckon me to join them there.

And to shed this body of wrought iron bars,
To break through the skylight that leads to the stars.
Over the black velvet darkness I’ll fly,
Where the heavens alight and unfold to my eyes.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2012
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED