True Love

You call me
a name unimagined,
raising me up
from the place
I have fallen.

“My beautiful one, rise,” you say, as you lift me with graceful motion
into your embrace.

“The rains have stopped.
The winter is over.
The season of singing has begun. Come, let me show you what winter’s deaths
have birthed.”

You, True Love,
come to us all in this way,
naming our beauty,
reaching to lift us
with grace from the place of our falling
into the heaven
of your arms.
You whisper hope
to our souls
of bird song and blossoms,
of spreading vines
and greening woods,
of sweet fruit ripening,
of new life, replacing
winter’s death.

You name us anew, raise us, embrace us, awaken our senses, invite us to come with you.

May we, shaken
with wonder,
breathe in your love,
be strengthened,
made ready, to sing our glad hallelujahs.

——

My lover spoke and said to me,
Arise, my darling,
my beautiful one, and come with me.
See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone.
Flowers appear on the earth;
the season of singing has come,
the cooing of doves is heard in our land.
The fig tree forms its early fruit;
the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.
Arise, come, my darling;
my beautiful one, come with me.
Song of Songs 2:9-13

From Heaven at my Door by Juanita Ryan