The Gift*

The Gift

 

The Second Rhyme of Jean Ami

 

-U-

 

What greater gift is given Earth

From Him who goes unseen

 

Than that which slakes the April buds

When they are small and green?

 

For in the Days of Pentecost,

God gave most holy things,

And they were whiter

Than a dove that fans

Its flawless wings

 

I was one year

Graced with such gifts

In figures made of wood;

 

And they were fashioned in a heart

That was most kind and good -

 

Four pikemen, and a mounted king,

A silver saint de bleu;[1]

 

Three Templars of the Scarlet Cross,

A tonsured priest or two

 

 

Six archers of a distant land,

Ten tall Teutonic knights

 

I loved them all

And served with them,

The worthies and the wights

 

I crossed myself with them at mass

And hid some in my coat; I sailed them

On a magic lake and let them guide the boat

 

I took a meaning from these men,

As that was God’s intent �" The truth

About my history, the facts we would invent:

 

The nature of our fellowship, of valor, truth, and shame,

And how a noble quest may flag but triumph, just the same!

 

But these good fellows lost their gleam; their burnish fell away

And faded in the little hands that touched them every day

 

Oh, lesson learned by each dear child

That plays upon the earth �"

 

What value hath the gift of love

If love knows not rebirth!

 

 

Oh, see the father turn his son

Away from horrid sights!

 

Oh, see him rack his noble mind

For what he knows delights

 

The innocence that is the child,

 

The scripture writ within, that tells

About a father’s love and how it blesses him!

 

---

 

Therefore, did my dear father

Find our Savior’s loving way

Of breathing life into a tomb

 

Wherein his breath would stay,

Renewing every man of wood

 

Behind love's golden door

And changing every color

From the one, it was before

 

Therefore, renew thy love divine,[2]

That God may dwell in thee

 

And bind thee to another's joy,

Though thou he cannot see.

 

Thoughts of Camille Du Monde: Entry Four

                   

I cannot help but like these lines, as they remind me of some gifts I once received from my sister. But who would guess a great knight’s friend was of a low estate? Perhaps De Guerre did pity the young Ami or see a special virtue in him that might redound in noble deeds. Or perhaps the young Ami did seek a great lord’s favor and found by chance a willing heart to grant a way to his ambition.  Life has paths that exceed enumeration, and grace is present on each one, and so is chance. We cannot know what turns a man in any new direction, as so many are the possibilities and so hidden is the source. But in his father's repainting of some wood, our Jean Ami would know a greater father in this world and learn that love renews. A grace was surely done.[3]

 

-P-

 

But a boy has many fathers in this world,

And each of them comes to him serendipitously

Or at the behest of diverse and interested spirits.

 

Sometimes, these men become

A truer father to a boy than his own,

And the boy will go in unexpected ways.

 

Yet, a warrior is often the sequel to a fierce lord’s epic,

A scholar, the improved pages of a wise man’s book.

 

But this happens only when  

A father is steadfast in his role

As a reliable conduit of grace

 

As grace is the primary reward a boy seeks

In any effort, he makes to please his father

 

In that way, I have been God’s imperfect steward,

Even though I recognize what makes me imperfect.

 

For many times, I have been oblivious to the impact

That the withholding of love has upon my child,

And not so much as wondered why

 

I am not disposed to grant mercy

To one that I love deeply -

 

And later, when I recognized my folly,

I was rebuked by the nullifying self-interest

That motivated my amendment in judgment,

 

Making the result less good,

And the act, an imperfect virtue.

 

Yet, often, a greater good arises

In the dissatisfaction of

Having loved poorly.