! I Eager For You Poem by Michael Shepherd

today, O My Beloved,
I eager for you…
there was no such word
until today; today, there is..

to say, I’m eager for you
would be to say,
less than, I am…
when it’s I am, and
which you are, O My Beloved,
that eagers…

nor do I recognise eagerness..
how can I, if it’s not me?
no, today, it's an active word...
what else might I say?
to say I long, makes it sound
that I may never find you…

to say, I languish, makes me sound
so weak and hopeless…
to say, I yearn, makes it sound
as if I never knew You…

even the Hebrew word the psalmist used –
the deer that yearns for the waterbrook,
the hart that pants for cooling streams –
even that word’s uncertain; some say
it’s the way that a deer, feet slightly splayed
upon the sloping bank, stretches out its graceful neck
to the clear, pure, healing water…

some say, it’s that slight sound the deer makes,
as it gently laps that lovely water…
the sound that quenching makes...
today I am that deer, tasting what’s just out of reach…;
that feeling beyond all words possesses me –

the feeling that You who ever are inside me, Lord,
wish to proclaim You outside me –
today, O My Beloved,
I eager for to be myself; for You…