Sacred Experience

I wrote this poem on the plane home with the intentions of handing it over to my brother to add some music. My mother asked me to write some Christmas song lyrics and I couldn’t bring Christmas, so I looked inside and decided that I felt passionate about this, about the idea that there are some experiences in life which can’t be shared. Whether it’s war, or religion, or trauma, or education, there are things which are so personal and so unique, that they cannot be explained except with those who have experienced the same thing. With that in mind, I wrote the following, and I hope these words show some of that passion.

I CANNOT TELL

Snow falls softly from the sky
Fire flickers in your eyes
While Christmas fills the world with light
I want to hold you close tonight,
But deep inside my heart’s not right.
Weighed down by a world of lies.

Silence settles quickly now
Aloft my furrowed brow
I wonder if God’s gracious son
Felt to share his cross with anyone,
Or bore it till his life was done?
To earn his heavenly crown.

Alone we sit together
A wife and her old soldier
I’ll love you with my shattered heart
In my world of lonely sorrow
For you don’t understand me now
And I can’t let you in.

I’ve been to the wars and I came back
What I’ve seen and done I’ll not forget
I want to tell you this Christmas Eve
Show you scars you won’t believe
But you weren’t in that hole back there
And it’s something I can’t ever share.

I’ll fight the fight forever
I’ll never wander far.
I’ll keep your love unsevered
I’ll love you like the stars
But I can’t tell you what I saw
Not you, not now, not ever.