As the Ruin Falls

<p>Lewis-Keaggy<br/><br/>All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you<br/>I never had a selfless thought since I was born<br/>I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:<br/>I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn<br/><br/>Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek<br/>I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:<br/>I talk of love --a scholar&#x27;s parrot may talk Greek--<br/>But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin<br/><br/>Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack<br/>I see the chasm. And everything you are was making<br/>My heart into a bridge by which I might get back<br/>From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking<br/>For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains<br/>You give me are more precious than all other gains