Today's Poem Inspired by Psalm 1:6
In the quiet dawn where light first separates
from shadow's clinging hem, the Lord regards
the path the righteous tread—not with distant gaze
but intimate knowledge, as a shepherd counts
each lamb by name beneath the stars, or as
a father traces with his finger the lines
of his child's open palm, reading futures there
in every crease and curve.
He knows the way
they take—not merely the direction of their feet
across the dust of ordinary days, but every
inward turning, every pause to listen
when the heart grows still enough to hear
the low voice of wisdom calling from the law
they love. He knows the mornings they rise early
to ponder ancient words until the syllables
become like rivers running through their veins,
sustaining greenness when the land around
turns brittle under sun.
He knows the narrow trail
that climbs through thorn and rock, where feet grow weary
yet do not turn aside; the shadowed valley
where fear whispers but faith replies in steady step;
the high places where wind tears at resolve
yet they stand rooted, drawing strength from unseen springs.
This way is no abstraction, no vague ideal—
it is the actual road of choices made in secret,
of kindness offered without witness, of truth
spoken softly when a lie would serve,
of hands that labor long for what will never
be their own reward. And every mile
is marked, remembered, cherished in the mind
of God who never sleeps nor turns His face away.
He watches—not as judge upon a throne
of cold appraisal, but as lover of the soul
that seeks His own heart's likeness in the world.
When storms descend and scatter lesser paths,
when floods rise high and wash away the bridges
built by pride or haste, this way endures
because it is held fast within His knowing.
The tree beside the stream still stands, its leaf
unfading, because the root drinks deep
from waters He Himself has set in place.
But oh, the other road—the way of those
who walk apart from light, who choose the counsel
of the mocking crowd, who linger in the seats
of scorn where laughter drowns the still small voice.
That path the Lord does not attend with tender care;
He does not trace its windings nor commit
its landmarks to His memory. It is a trail
of chaff, light and unrooted, lifted by
the first strong wind that rises from the desert.
It leads through fields of illusion, past mirages
of pleasure that dissolve upon approach,
down slopes of compromise where every step
grows heavier with what was never meant to bear
the weight of eternity.
No hand divine
upholds its travelers when the ground gives way;
no voice calls out to warn of pitfalls hidden
in the gathering dusk. The way itself
begins to perish long before the walker
reaches the end—first in small erosions
of integrity, then in the slow unraveling
of hope, until at last the path collapses
into nothing, a vanishing line upon
the map of time, forgotten even by
the one who walked it once with confidence.
Yet in the contrast lies a solemn mercy:
the righteous way is known because it matters,
preserved because it leads toward the heart
of Him who made the feet that walk it.
The wicked way perishes not from cruelty
but from irrelevance—it never touched
the living pulse of God, and so it fades
like mist beneath the rising sun.
So let the traveler choose with open eyes:
the path that God Himself remembers, guards,
and walks beside in quiet companionship,
or the one that drifts unheeded toward
its own oblivion. For in the end
two destinies await—not chance, not fate,
but consequence of what the heart has loved
and where the daily steps have turned.
The Lord knows one.
The other simply is not known—and therefore
perishes into the silence it has chosen.
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