I know your face well.
I know the features,
the silhouettes.
I know the parts that
look well under dim light,
the bags that form
after a short nights sleep.
I know its crinkled lines,
the wear it has taken.
I know the spot
your lips form,
and your cheek, where
your hair touches.
I know these things, and
though we have never
met, you live. Your
face reassures me
that I am loved, even
when I lose my way.
At times I sense
your face beginning to
come into focus,
somewhere on outer edges
a flickering light of truth,
of the full me who
I do not know.
Piece by piece I
make way for you.
I am building a place
for you to reside.
I know your face, Jesus,
because you know mine.
I like this poem, Howard. Sometimes it’s hard for me to connect to this type of art, but I’m glad you are branching out and changing thinks up. I love how personal you described our relationship to Jesus to be. Great job.
This gives me hope that we can know Jesus as lover. Thanks Howard.
Howard, this poem is really coming into focus, along with the face of Jesus coming into focus for you! Your changes have greatly strengthened it I think the fourth stanza is new and it’s especially intriguing to me. “At times I sense your face beginning to come into focus, somwhere on outer edges a flickering light of truth, of the full me who I do not know. Your yearning to know Jesus more fully really comes through, and I think you’re so right that to know Jesus more fully is intimately related to knowing the full created in the image of Christ you. The last line really pulls the poem together with a final thunder clap. “I know your face, Jesus, because you know mine.”
PS I still want to find that Albert Schweitzer(sp?) quote I mentioned to you; for me your poem really builds on the great insight that Schweitzer had about knowing Jesus-Jesus whose love we know in part but whose full being can never in this life finally be grasped and pinned down by us.