Inspired by a sketch of The Prodigal’s Return by Sir Edward John Poynter.

Into your arms,
I return,
confessing with a heaving heart
and cleaving to your familiar robes
to stanch the wounds I accrued
by pursuing a blind ambition I’d called sight.
How humbling to know it is you who are right
and I am in need of nourishment.
What encouragement,
to see
you
who love the unloveable
and call me
your offspring
as if such a thing
brings you no shame.
In a world so quick to note faults,
you waltz
with my breaking body
and guide my seeking soul.

You, who warn and warm me,
and light my wintered life,
when unteachable is I all hear,
how I never dreamed
for one as beautiful as you
to gaze upon my wantonness
and weave the words that are your hand on my heart.

-Amy Struthers