Poems (Hoffman)/Coals
COALS.
As baby fingers, eager, restless things,Reach out to grasp the cruel, glowing coals;So we reach out for some alluring thing,Lying before us bright and glistening;Unmindful of the sorrow it may bring,Until its blighting scar is on our souls.
And as a stronger arm extended forth,To save the tender flesh from unseen harm;Sometimes just as we think to grasp our prize,A wiser will than ours, our wish denies;Our Father reaches downward from the skies,And holds us back with His almighty arm.
Our Father see'th all, we see in part,Sometime He will reveal to us the whole;Then when He holds us back from some bright glow,O let us not rebel and struggle so;The hidden danger He alone can know,The glowing thing we want may be a coal.