MERCY AT DAWN

Forgotten in the corner of an ancient room,

she sits and watches as life unfolds.

Bent by the weight of resentment, broken by the impact of loss.

Her beauty obscured, but not lost.

She remains stuck on a chapter,

trying to fill in the missing lines.

A vessel made unto honour, worn out and fractured.

But like all things sacred,

mercy makes an appearance in the field of brokenness.

When there is a yearning for something beyond oneself,

a desire for a more meaningful existence.

For only a vast ocean can diminish an overwhelming wave.

Each morning, mercy walks in, cloaked in the mundane.

A simple glance, a gentle whisper,

quiet acceptance, a warm embrace.

But she knows the dance of sorrow all too well,

each step backwards, a familiar art.

The silence she knows has so much to say,

and so every visit, she withdraws to the quiet corner

of the old dusty room, for its all she's ever known.

The comfort of a familiar place,

blindfolds us while it slowly destroys us.

She feels a tug on her heartstrings every morning,

who would possibly want something so broken?

So she says,

"To this restless heart of mine, please be still."

but the tugs become a voice

"To this precious heart of yours, peace be still."

In the stillness of the room, she says

"If there's a warm enough sun out there,

one big enough to melt an unyielding glacier, save me."

Save me from myself.

Standing at cross roads, heart in hand

caught between the familiar and the unknown,

she takes a look at the broken vessel that is her,

now filled with light seeping through the cracks.

She defies the ordinary, and falls at the feet of mercy,

Mercy it seems, meets you where you are, as you are.

And it features an art called acceptance.

                                                -L.M ROSE