Damascus Road

For the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul.

 I could not see, so great the light
 that struck me down upon the road,
 as all-concealing as the night
 but—oh! What mysteries it showed!
  
 They bore me to Damascus, then,  
 and I was stone within their hands
 that someday must be flesh again,
 or else it shatters when it lands.
  
 Stone deaf to all but light's clear voice
 that called my name and spoke its own—
 a sound to make my heart rejoice
 if it were flesh instead of stone—
  
 stark blind because I saw too much,
 in darkness then I watched for days
 'til Ananias' trembling touch
 restored the ordinary rays.
  
 And when the scales fell from my eyes,
 the millstones fell from 'round my neck.
 In water as in light baptized,
 stone bent its knees to genuflect.
  
 The stone that mowed poor Stephen down:  
 that stone am I, the least of all,
 but in the silence, stones cry out,
 and in our darkness, light will fall.