Out of the swamp

Another from the files: the struggle for integrity, the struggle to get rid of the junk that was put on me by others, the struggle for truth in the inmost parts, the struggle to get rid of all those nauseating layers that come between me an the waiting Love of God. if I may try to redeem an analogy that's usually used in a VERY different context, trying to experience God's love with all my layers on is a little like showering in a raincoat! One tries to walk truthfully, and then finds that the untruth was a part of one's own self. (sigh)
The wild goose was the Celtic symbol of the Holy Spirit.

I have not walked in the swamplands, in the secret hidden places
Where the plants close over brackish streams,
The swarming things flicker in the shadows;
Breath catches on decay.

This is not where the wild goose flies
High in the lonely heavens, stretched to the limits of my span,
Cutting the cold, clean air
With the sorrows of the spirit.

This is the no go zone,
Spawning with a life I do not know,
Bloodsuckers, crawling things, tiny particles of nightmare,
Banned from the waking day,
They have made them a habitation,
Parasites that thrive on my discarded flesh and bone.

Here the blood throbs thickly, and swift, pale thought is difficult;
Dark deities I do not own come here to proselytise
Making demands in a gibberish to which I have no key;
I do not know what converts they have made
Amongst the disowned of myself,
Or what dark beliefs engage them.
I have no desire to roll in stinking mud,
Or betray myself for the shudder of a kiss.

I would go as the wind goes, bitter but so clean,
Scoured from the nightmare host, skeletal but singing.
In a clear, herb-scented fantasy where my gleaming bones can fly
Reduced to ethereal whispers, the safe-place of the mind.

Who was it welded this soft flesh to me,
So that there is no escape from the foetid, scorned encounter
In the undertow of the wastelands, where the angels do not go?