Lord be merciful to us
Our minds, our hearts, our thought
Have conceived the evil seed of arrogance
Have borne for long the fruit of greed
To bear the child of disbelief
We have said in our hearts
Our wisdom surpasses the heights of the mountains
Our knowledge drills beyond the depth of the sea
We have considered the thoughts that are blasphemy
That the divine is all that we cannot be
And strive we did, to become gods
Deities to ourselves our ego, our pride
We believed in our hearts’ deepest corners
That truth was by our own hands fashioned
That our creator was our only imagination
And we were truly masters
We like Babel’s boastful builders balked
At all who had your love as knowledge
All who bore your teachings by heart knowing little but this
That you alone are all-wise
We dismissed for own pleasure

Lord be merciful to us
The things we feel so small before
Attest to what your hands have done
When even in our perceived wisdom are thoughts
Of the sands of the seashore
Of the birds of the air
Of the beasts of the field
Even of ourselves
As merely children of fate’s hand
Not willing to give up our self pride
We know deep in our heart
That you were
You are
And you’ll forever be
But our minds so learned, blinded our sight
We saw so dimly
But now we have but for a few things destroyed ourselves
And what we have left is death crouching at our door

Lord be merciful to us
By your loving hands stretch
Save us from our ego’s dagger’s edge
Catch us from our fateful fall
Forgive our foolish arrogance
Cleanse our pride filled hearts of rot
And in your grace
Curdle us to yourself
Let us be your own
For our hands have devised things
Such as those, seeming so good
That have led us so far from truth
Farther than we have ever wished
All in a search for an alternative
Other than your merciful hands
Lord, in your graciousness
Please be merciful to us!

-Ikenna Nwachukwu

There is something that keeps me in its shadows
It picks me from a caught-up dream.
And thrusts me into the midst of a forgotten forest
It sounds with the rivulets that string my mind’s eye with tears.
It thunders with the rushing streams that splits verdant to regions.
Space to explore, to wander, to wonder about.
And with it goes the moody strings of a beautiful violin play.
Gentle flow, rising from the chest of the bearer of emotion,
Of dreams, of era, a time lost in thought.

Beyond history beyond the drab pages of a dense incunabula
It tickles my heart with the rising waves of the oceans.
It blinds in the golden clouds about the crest of a setting sun.
Those rays that strike me from the west
Those waves that weaken my pragmatic frame
They sizzle, dwindle, and descend
Like a mist,
All comes to a moment, a full so tense.
A pregnant stillness
And we wait for the initialized band’s revival

The tap upon shining grey brass
A spark, an explosion, a coming into life.
The force of the wind comes with the drift upon its back.
Like a warrior riding across the sky
Like kept secrets fighting their way into consciousness
In the capturing of a man from the now
The seizure, the transportation, the movement
With the fire in the heart of the player
With the sparks that fly into the skies to light them up
With the illumination that sweeps the expense of our universe
With the joy that covers us descending upon our skin
To envelope our lives and bring us satisfaction

The art of praise is what I describe
Devoid of its intent, it is merry exercise
It lifts us a bit
Complete worship raises us into heavenly heights
To join with creation
To sparkle in one movement
With all, as entirely was made us
And as will soon be restored to
Such remembrance unveils life.
A composition in progress
A point in the webbed question.
A pointer to the answer as it should be.
Experience may evoke pain and be longing
But to healing it must resort
And to purpose original, it must turn
Immersion in worship
In living
In doing
By raised hands
By words spoken
By you.

– Ikenna Nwachukwu