As soon as night descends, we meet. <br />Remorse my memories releases. <br />The demons of the past compete, <br />And draw and tear my heart to pieces, <br />Sin, vice and madness and deceit, <br />When I was slave of men's caprices <br />And when my dwelling was the street. <br /> <br />The deathly silence is not far; <br />A few more moments only matter, <br />Which the Inevitable bar. <br />But at the edge, before they scatter, <br />In front of Thee my life I shatter, <br />As though an alabaster jar. <br /> <br />O what might not have been my fate <br />By now, my Teacher and my Saviour, <br />Did not eternity await <br />Me at the table, as a late <br />New victim of my past behaviour! <br /> <br />But what can sin now mean to me, <br />And death, and hell, and sulphur burning, <br />When, like a graft onto a tree, <br />I have-for everyone to see- <br />Grown into being part of Thee <br />In my immeasurable yearning? <br /> <br />When pressed against my knees I place <br />Thy precious feet, and weep, despairing, <br />Perhaps I'm learning to embrace <br />The cross's rough four-sided face; <br />And, fainting, all my being sways <br />Towards Thee, Thy burial preparing.<br /><br />Boris Pasternak<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/mary-magdalene-i/
