For Peace
Much too late I learned to love you
beauty how old you are how new you are
much too late I learned to love you.
You were within me, I was outside
and I sought you as a blind man seeing
outside myself and, poured out like water,
I ran away from you and I was lost
amid so much beauty, but it was not you.
Then you called and then I cried aloud to me,
breaking through the barrier of my deafness.
You appeared in light that blinded me
because you wanted to put my blindness to flight.
You shed fragrance and I beathed it in,
I still gasp for breath and long for you.
I tasted you and since that time am thirsty
and hunger for you. Easily touched,
I was set alight by you. And now I
burn and blaze towards you—for peace
-From St. Augustine’s Confessions 10:27
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