Surrender and the Joyous Sacrifice

In my small and limited room of mind

I could not understand but only sense

As when the heart grows wide embracing all,

The Presence at whose feet I humbly knelt.

She seemed a mother speaking to Her child

In gentle tones of such transcendent things,

Of music's source and soul's awakening

And more, but I was captive of Her smile

And the mind failed and only God was there.

And then She briefly loosed the sacred fire

That entered in the heart's profound recess,

Never to be quenched by darkling force,

A flame that rose and burned within my breast

An entire conflagration of the being,

A scorching, searing heat that left no mark,

And then all stilled and to her I returned,

Changed yet outwardly the same, yet new,

Remade in Her blaze of love and fiery Grace

To set upon the road the Lord has hewn

To a destiny not glimpsed but inly known.

Now my soul awaits the fracturing

Of all the hard and dense integuments

I've formed in this and all my former lives,

Surrender and the joyous sacrifice.