There is a ladder that I climb
And climb I shall through all of time
The wood is rough and splintery
And so the task is hard, you see
And as I climb my arms grow weak
My bones, like the rungs, bend and creak
Sometimes resolve abandons me
My head goes down and I can't see
When climbing in this careless way
I lose my hold and slip away
So, quickly I fall ten feet down
I tell myself to not look down
I grab hold of the rung again
Then meditate and rest my chin
The rung has now a coat of slime
It feels I'll slip another time
I push the thought out of my head
For if I fall, then I'll be dead
I wipe away the dreadful slime
And climb again, step at a time
And though the top I'll never see,
I keep my gaze ahead of me.
"Why do you climb", a man once asked
"...If you cannot complete the task?"
"There are two worlds", I said to him
"...And one of them is filled with sin
Within that world, you'll find no light
Your soul is bound by fear and spite
In the other, you can see
Your heart's made whole and you are free
The line between these worlds is broad
That is the world on which we trod
But even here amidst our strife
You'll find there are two sides of life
We start between and go one way
By choices we make every day
This road we take is gradual
We slowly fall as blinded fools
Unless we climb the other way
And so please hear these things I say
As I climb, the light gets brighter
And the load on me becomes much lighter
The truth's revealed and my heart made full
As I climb away from sin's dark rule
So, where's this ladder that I climb?
He's here; take hold. He's yours and mine"
|Written 2010|
*from my Emerge collection, being poem #10. Please see the collection page itself.
The final original poem in the Emerge project set, "The Ladder" brought my own poem contribution to Emerge to a close, wrapping up my part in the theme with an open invitation to the reader to follow the God of my own lessons learned--The Father of Jesus Christ--Yahweh!
The Ladder was my most popular poem in my Emerge collection among my friends and family, and I feel it's one of my most favored and respected/appreciated poems I've ever written, even to this day. It's one people I know still bring up when my poetry is in conversation. Perhaps childishly, I think this bittered me towards it a bit. I love this poem, and it was certainly lead by The Spirit, and I hope it will have an impact in the world. But were other poems in the set that have deeper personal significance and treasured value for me, that I guess others will never be able, by no fault of their own, to appreciate.
At the time, TL was the longest poem I had ever written, and I believe it was actually the last one I wrote for Emerge.
The word "rung" all throughout the poem was originally "bar". I didn't know what they were called! :P
© 2017 A.D. Sifford.
I'm okay with you sharing my poems, but I ask that you show courtesy. Please be honest about the authorship by attributing it to my name. Thank you,
- Sifford