The Agony of Sin

JON BISHOP is an MFA candidate at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas, where he studies poetry. He lives
in New Hampshire


This deepened dark has set my mind to prayer.

I fill my fallen soul with sins each day

And purge them from myself before I sleep

And ask my God (oh, God!) to fill the air

With not my faults but with His grace and say

How He has seen me pull up from the deep,
Like haggard birds that soar across the sun

To flee the coming cold. They wait for May,

As I await my Lord to save His sheep.

We know He’ll come again when days are done, And all of Hell will
weep.