A Poetic Meditation on Isaiah 41:19-20
By Vicky Stinziano
Oh God of the Wilderness
Let your consolations arise.
Contend for my vision.
My percieving, revise.
In the midst of the desolate,
let beauty surprise.
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Plant deep the stately Cedar,
grandeur leads up to the sky.
Day by day refocusing;
ever slowly, lift my eyes.
To grow in your perspective;
restructure views to stabilize.
_____
Grow firm the fixed Acacia,
abundant, without change.
Your canopy of covering,
remaining constant, age to age.
Let it regulate my churned up soul as I
lean on permanence to be sustained.
____
Spring quickly the flowered Myrtle,
a quiet space to stop and breathe.
Branches low and dense and wide;
a place of beauty to sit beneath.
Let me find the cooler shade-
refuge to hear you speak relief.
____
Set strong the roots of the Olive tree.
Speed up its precious growth.
Healing leaves and twisted trunk,
reveal the wrestle of repose.
Here a patient, treasured prize;
in time, a peace composed.
____
Put forth the tall, green Cypress,
another grateful shade.
But this an homage to loss and pain;
holding place for joy delayed.
Durable and living,
A sacred shade where grief is laid.
_____
And would you plant the Plane and Pine?
Unlikely blessings to grow grand.
Fragrant- just in kindness;
the generosity of your hand.
The overflow of goodness
transforming the contour of the land.
______
This despairing desert
will not succeed at what it seems.
Even now the seeds yield life.
The forest emerging, tree by tree.
Developing and establishing;
the certain growth of me.