the deepening ground

I have held off on sharing this poem for years, though I love the image and the structure (rhyme and meter) of the poem itself. I don’t believe I wrote this poem from a place of hardness of heart; truly the image inspired the work that follows. Nor do I ever want to be known as an inexorable curmudgeon. In fact, I pray daily for a soft heart. I need more of my Father’s unconditional loving-kindness deep within, but I know that the landscape of my natural heart is bent (see C. S. Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet) like this strange forest. Only God can transform this tortured desert into a fecund garden with springs of living water.

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Strange Forest

by Vincent H. Anastasi 2019

Dark tortured limbs devoid of life
	about the forest writhe,
the skeletons of poplar trees
	that hauntingly survive.

Black River waters never reach
	the long forsaken roots;
no nourishment of sun or soil
	could call forth living shoots.

Beneath the sunset still they roil
	like desert dragons all,
a thousand years before they die;
	a thousand ere they fall.

This strange forest that in me lies,
	though only known in part,
will ever stand the monument
	of my unyielding heart.