Psalm 22:11

Somehow,
you are surrounded
by danger, by temptations
to surrender

and let the jackals
pull at your soul, left
at the side of the road
like some kind of spiritual road kill,

yet now quite dead,
refusing to relinquish your belief
in miracles, in possibilities and promises,
standing in the midst of unlikely prayer

that surrounds you
like a  warriors’s shield
that refuses to let you die
and the hands of your own frailty.

About this poem

Psalm 22:11, from my morning devotions this morning, reads “So not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.”.  And that was the inspiration for today’s poem, focusing on the worst enemy most of us have… ourselves.

The picture was taken in Venice, Italy.

Tom