Lecherous stump of flesh, knotted, rotten,

Twisted from thy flickering flirtations

With lesser lovers, leaving frostbitten

That sad little lump of palpitations.

 

Withered lie thy dry leaves, O heart of mine,

Deprived of all love’s life-giving waters,

For thy lovers’ drinks were as poisoned brine

That can quench no thirsting buds of flowers.

 

No, thou cannot sprout with bloom or beauty

But only shrink and shrivel and splinter

When thy lovers know not eternity,

That soil of the spurious soul’s Planter.

 

Then did the racked root of my heart find Him,

A Gardener grafting, vivifying ev’ry fallen limb.

Photo by Dominicus Johannes Bergsma (CC BY-SA 4.0)