Omnipotence & Analysis

+JMJ

The following poem came into my head some time ago as I was getting up from that blessed state which kindergartners shun and college students find indispensable: the nap.  (Which, now that I think of it, may explain the presence of sleep reference.)  While most of my daydreams and half-waking musings are not worth a ha'penny, I thought this one worth the quill and ink.  I offer it for your judgment alongside a bit of my own analysis, included below. 

“Omnipotence”

By Caitlin M. Clancy
Copyright 2011, 2012

The last drop of ink

From a weary pen

The snarl of beasts

In the lion’s den

The grandeur of Places

Both far and deep

The placid breath’s rhythm –

A child’s sleep.

For who can decide,

Or else can see,

The meaning that one

At once is three?

Who can know,

Or who recall,

The sweet of wine,

The sting of gall?

Only Him

Who never sleeps

Yet who in anguish,

Bloody, weeps.

Recall Him, world,

And do not turn –

Your life will last

Unless you spurn.

To give a bit of my own explanation/analysis: 

The title that has been applied thus far refers to the first series of images – all things that God can see at once, though we cannot (not just in terms of place, but of time as well, since God exists outside of time).  The images include both minute details, like a child’s breathing, as well as things that exist in a broader, more obvious scope ("places/Both far and deep").  The pen, besides being the instrument of the writer, is a relatively modern image while the lion’s den is from long ago – from the story of Daniel. The second half of the poem (“For who can decide…”) asks, in essence, who else but God can know and see everything?  Who but he is Omnipotent?  The final part of the poem (“Recall…”) turns to the audience – the world – and offers a solemn reminder of the choice the world has to make between eternal life and its alternative. (Also, just a detail I happened to notice and find interesting: the first image can show both that God sees things past and present, and also that God’s eye is, so to speak, upon me, the writer, even as I compose the poem.  And upon you as you read it.  Bears pondering, no?)