Trinity Arts Festival

This year I entered a couple of poems in my church's annual arts festival. One of them is kind of gloomy. The other is a rewrite of the song Mad World.

One of the requirements was that each piece had to have a short description by the author. This is what I wrote for the first poem, Adeste.

I started this poem with the idea of a paradox: what if a person felt extremely cold in the middle of one of the hottest places on earth? Why would this be? Then I had the idea that maybe it was a spiritual feeling, rather than a physical one. As I wrote the poem, I began to realize that the struggle between the speaker and the elements represented the inner turmoil of a sinner who has just begun to realize that salvation comes from God alone. The last two lines tie in the theme of helplessness without God.

Since Adeste is rather long, I'll save the other poem, Green World, for another post.

Adeste

Shivering

Silently

In the wide, barren wasteland 

So yellow and orange

The cruel sun - unmerciful sun!

Which struggles to warm me;

I cannot be touched

My heart is like ice

The wind whips by around me

Brushing my face

Touching my hand 

Striving to warm me

It is all hot air

I cannot be touched

Shuddering

Quietly

They call this a desert

I cannot get warm

They call a city crowded

I have stood in one

So lonely, so lonely

I cannot be touched

The fine grains of sand

Sinking beneath my feet

Carry me gently downwards

Hardening beneath my weight

So have I been

Sinking, drifting downwards

Hardening my heart

My heart that is ice

Save me

O sun

If you can

Warm me

O wind

If you will

Carry me away

Soft sand

Even though

I will never get warm

I will sink into oblivion

Unless Thou comest quickly

Unless Thou comes to free me