Hold me now...

by Jennifer Knapp

From glass alabaster she poured out the depth of her soul.
O foot of Christ would you wait if her harlotries known?
Falls a tear to darken the dirt
of humblest offerings to forgive the hurt.
She is strong enough to stand in your love.
I can hear her say....

I'm weak.
I'm poor.
I'm broken Lord
but I'm yours.
Hold me now.
Hold me now.

Let he without sin cast the first stone if you will.
To say that my bride isn't worth half the blood that I've spilled.
Point your finger and laugh if you choose
to say my beloved is borrowed and used.
She is strong enough to stand in my love.
I can hear her say....

I'm weak.
I'm poor.
I'm broken Lord
but I'm yours.
Hold me now.
Hold me now

I am, I am, I am...

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.

From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out.

I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.