This poem took some time and comes from my recent season of walking through grief to new hope, which I have written about here and here.
A word about the imagery: For those familiar with the Bible, you should know the morning star depicted in this poem is not necessarily Jesus. Instead, it is something that comes to us in our lives that reflects God’s providence.
Scientifically, a morning star is usually the planet Venus, which literally is reflecting the light of the sun which is about to rise. So the morning star here is the thing in our lives that represents a promise God has given to us, and also the fingerprints of God throughout our lives which reflect a Kingdom “whose increase has no end” like the morning daylight.
But in a sense God’s fingerprints are not mere reflections; they are first fruits, representing the fact that the veil between us and God, and Heaven and Earth, is now torn asunder, and we are now (not one day) partakers of the divine.
P.S. I am in Ireland at the present moment. Pictures to follow 🙂
Morning Star
In the early hours after a dark night
while blackness still clung to silhouettes
and I could still see my breath
I saw it from afar
just above the horizon glistening,
with all the silent morning listening,
with hope the newborn daylight christening:
A bright and morning star.
My heart stirred
and whatever loss of light
had met those darkest hours of night
Was lost upon that heavenly body before me, burning bright.
But knowing well how lines get blurred
in the early hours of twilight
where thin is the celestial veil
and ordinary things take on divine reflection
And the night upon my heart still clinging
in those early hours of dawn
with all the hope that solitary star was bringing
I feared I could not go on.
But then that lonely wanderer on its course
with a glimmer showed me it derived its source
not from itself but from a greater Light reflected:
One veiled by momentary night now being resurrected.
And so I watched in silent admiration
among the shadows already shifting
my twilight companion toward its final destination
Foretell an end to darkness already lifting.
Most days now when I feel I can’t go on
I arise from sleep and darkness deep
and put one foot before the other
toward the coming dawn.
Photo by Josh Felise on Unsplash