All I fear

All I fear,

Lord, on this planet teeming, wild,

Are the death of my child

And faithlessness to You.

The one would pull the other in its wake

As surely as earth’s spin each day our light must take

Or so I fear.

Would it?

I beg you, don’t bring me to a test of love

I can’t pass. If boundless grief should move

The father who survives his child to hate You,

My bond with him is stark and raw.

When tender flesh of his flesh slips too early into universal maw,

How does raging Lear bear it?

In losing her Ilose You.

Let me not lose her.

When Idie let her remember

Her father’s antique faith in You.

Let her somber heart review the desolate fragility of life.

Let her mock the adiaphora of strife,

And shed warm tears of thanks to You.

Hal Riedl