By the sadness of the countenance

Ecclesiastes 7:3: "Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better."

I sailed the ocean to find my love 
made due offerings at shrines on far shores
to Gods whose names I’ll never know, but still revere,
navigated seas where the sane lost their sight 
and all the while burning

Hosanna! (I am the offering) 

Instead, I found you.
Half-concealed by shadows
and half-sick, too,
in the subterranea, weaving
on the border of the land of the living
pious and impervious. 
Jade water casts the dream of speckled daylight
on the walls you paint
not without care, but with little joy or fear 

In my hands a torch was burning.

A voice, not yours or that I know as mine, 
rose within like a fountain 
to break the silken non-silence of slow water: 
“The curse is come upon me”. 
That flame died in the grotto's green pool.
After, I thought that I let go too soon,
but still you remain making
like the divine
accepting every offering. 

Hosanna! (I am the offering)

The sea has ceased raging but still I do not depart.
The firefed arrows that drove me here
no longer burn, just prick the skin a little
while fire within rages
to burn myself from myself, asunder (kenosis).
Hosanna! I am the offering. 
Behold a woman with a heart of snares and nets, relenting
who has stopped, seeking.
My heart rests in the house of mourning,
like the belly of a great fish trapped Jonah 
so he could no longer flee the LORD, or
like Jesus blinded Paul on the road to Damascus. 
I found thee, one among a thousand. 
To Nineveh I will go. 
Hosanna! Let my life be the offering.