The following poem is from “Patricia St John tells her own story” (click HERE for Biography):


My Master has an elixir that turns
All base and worthless substances to gold.
From rubble stones He fashions palaces
Most beautiful and stately to behold.
He garners with a craftsman’s skilful care
All that we break and weeping cast away.
His eyes see uncut opals in the rock
And shapely vessels in our trampled clay.
The sum of life’s lost opportunities,
The broken friendships, and the wasted years,
These are His raw materials;
His hands rest on the fragments, weld them with his tears.

A patient Alchemist! – He bides His time,
Broods while the South winds breathe, the North winds blow,
And weary self, at enmity with self,
Works out its own destruction, bitter slow.
Then when our dreams have dwindled into smoke,
Our gallant highways petered out in mire,
Our airy castles crumbled into dust,
Leaving us stripped of all save fierce desire, 
He comes, with feet deliberate and slow,
Who counts a contrite heart his sacrifice.
(No other bidders rise to stake their claims, 
He only on our ruin sets a price).
And stooping very low engraves with care
His Name, indelible, upon our dust;
And from the ashes of our self-despair
Kindles a flame of hope and humble trust.
He seeks no second site on which to build,
But on the old foundation, stone by stone,
Cementing sad experience with grace,
Fashions a stronger temple of His own.

OM Publishing, ISBN 1-85078-178-8)
(click HERE for more Book info)