With this Gift

With this Gift

(“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God, and you are not your own?” 1 Corinthians 6:19)

What shall I do with this gift I think is all of life?
When limited by length, the ways my legs propel and
limited by vision I wish my eyes to excel both their clarity
and their understanding.

Shall I blame it for my faltering? A pain in mind and
rigid joints once fluid and quick, wit and flow, words and
dance. For I forget, within 30 seconds, the same word I scratched
the surface to find not a minute later. Reminded of the runs
through blocks and parks, under viaducts, ignoring the barks
of backyard dogs.

Shall I paint it frivolous? Shall I lament its crooked semblance
to a boy I once knew years ago? How shall I wear this skin,
the years growing thin and progressions of past folly?
Is it the gemstone within, created and compressed,
an image well-crafted of the Father’s Son? Or, spirit and
soul and skin; are they one? A wrapless package of
inspiration, movement and semblance that astounds
when asked the price?

“You have been bought with a price” and “You are not your own”

redeem this wickedly weak frame into a
sacred space for me to belong.

What shall I do with this gift, this body slogging through time?
My hands are not yet helpless, my legs to walk where light has yet shined,
my eyes are not dim and can see the image, where once they were blind,
of the Beloved’s face; prosaic and rhyme.