40 Days

They say you can break a habit
in just about 40 days
You can start a better living
Maybe mend your ways

What you did before didn't work
What you do now is only okay
The pain of what happened back then
Still has a hunger to stay

40 days in the desert of myself
I cannot seem to leave
The illusion of love and of hate
My heart still wishes to cleave

Every comet picture reminds me
Of the great hope I dreamed I once had
That all of the sadness before
Would be in shadows from thoughts now glad

It is hard to let go of what we think we were
In the presence of something new
It is hard to forgive yourself and others
Hard to  believe it is true

That suffering can end in the blink of an eye
That darkness is ended by light
That forgiveness is possible in 40 days
That day arises from night

I cannot deny that I loved
When love was so far from me
I cannot pretend a lie
I cannot escape what will be

In the desert you feel so dry
And walking is hard to do
But someone brought me a hat to wear
And another brought me some shoes

Someone held my hand in his
Someone spoke of love in my Night
Someone thought I was beautiful
Someone made wrong into Right

The trick of surviving the desert
is what you carry along
Holding fast to the rights that were given
Discarding the things that went wrong

The desert is sometimes a scary place
Winds blow and they seem to not cease
They knock me around tween heaven and earth
When I'm tired they seem to increase

40 days in the desert of seeing myself
Still hard to not be unkind
Still hard to see my worth
Still hard to let unwind

The tightness that sin brings upon us
When truth is at last revealed
The child must say yes to fogiveness
And that which was broken is healed

40 days in the desert each year I must go
 By Satan himself to be bound
Taking ro heart things I learn there
Once knowing the loss, I am found. 

[I cannot seem to settle on either poem, they are still not complete, so I'm sharing both...with the hope that move will catalyze me into what I need to do next]


Love, Cindy
3-30-13

L