This Poem was inspired by a sculpture that I viewed in Paris at Musee D'Orsay which deeply moved me. It is of St. John the Baptist as a child, by sculptor Jean Dampt.

Expectant   

                                                                               

Though years have passed

And gathered up to centuries

Advancing time won’t dare to touch

This cherub face

No weary lines of pain to trace

No bending back from burdens borne

You wait

Your stillness makes me wonder

At what’s inside your marble heart

An ancient ice or coals so white from blazing fire?

What keeps you here, petitioning

With upturned eyes, untiring?

There is no furrow on your brow

No strain in folded hand

But patiently you wait

With trust so pure,

Abiding

Through blackest night and tempest strong

Through fainting heat and coldest solitude

Your posture, though of stone

Truer by far than any man of flesh

I’ve ever known.

And while no words have even passed through your sweet lips

Your silence speaks abundance

I linger at your side for but a moment

Yet how I long to stay

And ask, O Child,

Please teach me how to pray!