Cheryl, who wrote this poem for Doves & Serpents, asked if our readership had any ideas for the title. Please share your thoughts, feelings and possible titles in the comments below.
You are a God of temples,
Celestial rooms and light;
Of spotless sunlit windows
And robes of white.
I am a child of darkness,
Of hurt and midnight pain;
My heart a blood-red vessel
Of sin-seared shame.
You are a God of chapels,
Of shaking friendly hands;
Of chatter in the foyer
In green-grassed lands.
I am a homeless outcast,
A gasping thirst have I;
A gray and lonely phantom,
A branch so dry.
Where can we meet but Jesus,
Your reaching, roaming Son?
By day a reigning monarch, on
A golden throne;
But then, by night descending
Throughout the world’s black skies
To kiss the purple bruises
Of such as I.
At first I was thinking “The Twain Shall Meet,” or something having to do with colors (since I included a color in every staza and I wanted to make that more obvious), but I didn’t feel happy with either idea. Help, D&S readers!!
“Dichotomies”? “Chasm”? “Alienation”?
Know ye not the condescension of God?
BTW, I love this, and will be sharing it shortly.
I like this quite a bit, but I suck at naming poems. I second Kate’s ideas–probably “chasm.”
How about ‘Descending’? It captures the ‘Child of Darkness’ aspect, the feeling of emotional descent… and the ‘condescension of God’.
Love the poem, Cheryl.
Cheryl, this poem provokes strong feelings in me. I’m not sure they are the same that you express but that’s the power of a poem. I suggest this title only half-heartedly: “A Co-Dependency Divine.” My issues are showing but it makes me angry that anyone would have to feel so much pain as a byproduct of courting the divine.
I’d go with “Royal Purple”.
I have no great title for you. The poem is beautiful though, and it struck me less as a dichotomy and more as being two ends of one stick. The dark and the light aren’t opposites, but flip sides of the same thing. Can God be dark, painful, lonely and bruised? To me it is obviously so, because you my friend – are Divine. Sometimes it’s easier to look out and see beautiful things outside of ourselves because we are too close to recognize them within. Or so I think, at 12:30 AM!
Thanks, everyone, these are all good suggestions, and any one of them would work. I love “Royal Purple,” but I’m toying with Matt’s and Laurie’s comments and thinking about “Co-Divinity.” I think some of the elements of your anger went into this poem, Matt. So I’d like to invoke the co-dependency aspect. But I’m also inspired by Laurie’s assertion that I am Divine… and the word “co-divinity” would add that to the poem: that both the light and the dark are god.
Perhaps “Ascending” — a reference to the descending, but also the point where our souls rise to meet the divine already within us?
I love the poem, while I also suscribe to Laurie’s thinking, you really capture the sense of alienation that seems to be part of our spiritual evolution.
Title? Opposition in all Things