What the Bird Said Early in the Year
~C. S. Lewis~
I heard in Addison’s walk a bird sing clear
This year the summer will come true. This year! This year!
Winds will not strip the blossom from the apple trees
This year, nor want of rain destroy the peas.
This year time’s nature will no more defeat you,
Nor all the promised moments in their passing cheat you.
This time they will not lead you round and back
To Autumn, one year older, by the well-worn track.
This year, this year, as all these flowers foretell
We shall escape the circle and undo the spell.
Often deceived, yet open once again your heart.
Quick, quick, quick, quick! The gates are drawn apart.
“Stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.” (Jeremiah 6:16)
Autumn 2017
And she stood in the ways
And sought the old paths,
Searching the Hall of Memories.
A snapshot in time from Memory’s vault
–From when the hoped-for moments did cheat–
Yet whispered true: “This year,
After all, was not by the well-worn track.”
Her thoughts wandered back,
Back into time, meandering here and there
To ten years ago, that Landmark Year
When first God seemed not distant.
When it suddenly dawned on her
That over the months
she had begun to get to know Him.
She thought back again, to Six years past,
When first she stepped out beyond her horizons
and was filled with such gaiety as her mind had not known.
And yet that was the time when she lost
the self-discipline she thought she knew,
And evermore staggered from deadline to deadline,
feeling drowned and gasping for breath.
And Five years agone
Was another high point,
A crossing of threads, a meeting of friends.
New people, new doors, new opportunities.
Life still much the same as before,
Yet richer, sweeter, fuller.
The threads that first crossed paths that day,
Continue to multiply now.
Even Three years stands out,
A mixed up year of bitter and sweet.
The bitter of depression,
The sweet of new vision,
And a token of promised faithfulness.
“All these paths, all these places,
Which is the old? Which is the good
Where I can find rest?”
“This is the way, walk ye in it”,
Said a voice from behind, on faithfulness.
It is Autumn again. Another year older.
And thus He had led her through the years
Round and back, but not
By the same old track.
Returning then to where she had been,
Standing in the ways,
Gazing down the road
Where it disappeared in a bend,
She strove to still her thoughts
And woo her will into action
–Yet all to no avail.
The weight of heavy failure clung,
cumbering each attempted step–
Paralyzed every limb.
“I cannot do it!” She cried, at last
giving up in cold despair.
I cannot do it on my own…
But, perhaps, if you went with me…?
Standing there at the old, low path
A voice from behind rang soft,
A voice from beside spake low,
“Be not discouraged from the way things have been,
Nor dwell on the things of old.
Behold, I will do a new thing.”
Threads of Truth: 