Bottomless Chalice

Image Source:  cartwheelit.wordpress.com

It does not slip softly from our shoulders

Falling like a robe to the floor

It is not like the rushing and rolling breaker

Dissolving as it touches the shore

It runs through our senses, not like wild fingers

Of wind as it ruffles the corn

Yet, disregards fences and wantonly lingers

Where thought tumbles, both keen and forlorn

Deep in the hollow of hidden eclipses

Where hope and fear coalesce

Where love holds closely and yet releases

In simultaneous caress

Here in a twisting and turbulent tide

Or still as a frozen sea

Inexplicable oceans of longing abide

Its source an abstract  mystery

We carry a chalice somewhere deep within

That nothing in this world can fill

A hunger sprouting from the seed of sin

As we bear our share of ill

As we love and laugh and trust and pray

The ache will remain until

Heaven descends to take it away

This void that earth cannot fill

© Janet Martin