25 Hour Watch

So many people sharing their heart,
So many looking for love.
So many broken, embittered stones
Giving up on that light above.
Stones that once were infant hearts,
Broken far too soon.
Shattered pieces,
Across the battlefield of love,
Are strewn.
A heart that had so much to give,
Wounded past its strength, and then,
Turned to rock,
Never to yield, be hurt, or feel again.
‘If this is what it means to love: to live in agony,
I do not want to feel at all,
Or let anyone close to me!
Unyielding walls I will build
As my impenetrable shields-
Never will I feel again,
Never kicked, or cut, or heeled.’
And one by one, across that field,
Hearts are turned to stone,
As they reject the price of love,
To roll on, and on, alone.
Each stone that rolls, once turned so hard,
Will strike on those still soft.
Those hearts will then each turn to stone,
Blind to that love aloft.
So very many perfect hearts
Whose love is now entombed:
Why could they not have clenched their teeth,
Been strong, and cleaned their wound?
I was the one cut into my heart;
My hand ever wields the blade.
Would that I’d not turned and fled,
But faced my wound, and stayed.
For if I’d not given heed to fear,
But turned, and borne, and stayed,
My sorrows would in time have healed,
My soul would not be flayed.
My wounds, scabbed over but never cleaned,
Will fester ever sore-
Infected and untreated,
It has been poisoned so much more.
Yet even now, though greater pain,
Awaits at End than Start,
The strength still lies within- I can detoxify my heart!
For all the stone and all the rock
Is really nothing more
Than fear, and hate, and grudges,
Over time built up in store.
If each of these has helped to poison deep
A once-clean soul,
Then faith and hope will build a bridge
To span the depths and make it whole!