The Naked Branch

The Firefly has open-mike night each Wednesday. I am praying about offering three poems, three gifts from my Beloved. Is this too useful?

My confessor, the parish priest, said it might be a way Jesus would be pleased to receive my gifts. No, they are not my gifts; I know this deep down in. But, I could offer the gift of the poems back to Him, and if others would be touched, it would be like offering the gifts back to Him Who is in these others.

This is one poem I'm considering. It is the poem I sent with the snowball letter to the Vicar General, as a thank-you for his allowing me to try to explain my pathetic self and why I did what, time and again, seems to create swirls of controversy. A naked branch is thus, even if written in 1997. The naked branch still am.

The Naked Branch
by
Zenith

(from the One Who creates all)

I am the naked branch.
I feel this truth when buds surround
in leafing green, the spring warmth all around;
And I have none to show, no emerging jewels
to flash and draw acclaim from passers-by.

Jutting branch of silent bark, dark
nudity soon hid by filling in, nature's
brushstrokes, verdant growth, rustling
scented freshness grabbing senses, center stage:
Leaves clapping their applause, a summer star attraction.

But I, the naked branch, still am,
undetected, yet attached to living trunk,
seeming dead from outside in, no green illusions
casting spells on those who wish bewitching tones
of dazzling nature's shadow thralls.

For those four-eyes who spy my leafless branch
and sight a deferential "Why?"--my knotholes
in one glance absorb in unspoken deprecation--
in one glance absorb unspoken deprectaion--
avert, as if to pray away, in sympathy, the truth
of earthly dishabille: my soul condition.

I am the naked branch.
United with all that lives in rootedness, yet
by some grace of Eminence has died to
that which clutters cumbrous landscapes of the mind,
awaits the golden touch of frozen clime; leaves wither, curl,
and flutter down, crushed humus, unnoticed footfalls now.

Opus Dei! rare orbs which taste and see the
deadened air alive, empurpled branches unentwined
in universal oneness: the living and the living dead.
The tree, alone, stands black on white,
a sacrifice to winter's shawl, dark thorns
grasp clawlike to the sky, shiver "Why?"

Whose ears dug open by obedience
detect salvation's chant?
"I Am the naked branch."