Call Them By Name

 

Call Them by Name

(“I assure you: Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces a large crop.” John 12:24)

Tell me what is on your mind,
let me know the corners that never see
the breath of morning breezes.
It is easy to say I will not reject the shadows,
I will not gasp at the unexposed stories
locked away in a steamer trunk too heavy to bear.

If you have lost the key, I will help you find it;
I will turn it gently in the lock and avert my gaze
as you tilt the lid slowly, as the light lowly beams
across the musty contents.

They are everything you have stowed away,
the hopes, the loves, the dreams, the clouds,
the kites you would launch in an opening sky.
But hidden they have become an ache of sorrow,
lead weights upon your opening soul.

Tell me what is on your mind,
let me know the dreams you have packed away.
I have stored my own shadows, wept over my unspoken
passions, and grieved the love I never gave and the love
I have lost.

I will listen, though you whisper haltingly,
though you stammer for words to, this time,
give life to the dreams that were nearly a casket below
the earth.
Tell them to me low enough and only I will hear.
Tell them to me slowly, birth never comes quickly or
easily. But I will be your doula never leaving your side
until, born anew,
the full light shines on all you thought was dead or
shame. Now they are christened: “Beloved”.

Call them by name.