In Words Unspoken

in

All You are, I cannot relate.

You are in the moment before pen meets page.

You have given me the pen, the page,

and the mind to pour You onto this canvas.

Your image I fail to capture.

 

You are beyond all of my fumbling prose.

The praise I strive to express is found

under my words, behind my letters.

In the space between this word and the next

are all of the things I long to sing, praise, and shout

to Heaven…to the world around me!

 

In that space, You are free to exist as You are:

Indescribable, untamable, unstained by the

blackness of my ink.

I long to dwell in that space.

So, I will build a ladder of words

(each letter to give You praise)

until you lift me up from my

Tower of Babel.

 

When I join You in that space,

the unknowable and mysterious,

I will see the face that I sought

through my words.

Then, my heart will be loosed to replace the pen,

and I will know that I was the canvas,

and You, the author of my life.

by Alyssa Carlburg