I give my need to every flirting wind,
but it fills this void with only empty air.

I hand my desperation to
charlatan or tramp,
and watch them trample dirt upon its name.

I give my need into my "self" and twist my soul
to suck itself.

My need is a common slut.
It does not discriminate.

My needs, I cast about . . .
Comfort, I gave your need to a false mother.
Knowledge, I gave you to a vacant ideal.
Love, I gave you to any willing dog. 

I need what I don't comprehend and won't admit,
so I throw my poverty on
any altar of supply. 

Ambition, merely the road that need takes
to find its worth.
Greed, just the hunger of a cavernous soul.
Hatred, the explosive packed by an ache for love.

The shame of my deficit tempts my pride to lie.
The nakedness of destitution makes me
clothe my bones in words to plays.

I am need. All of me is need.

Even my generosity is my need . . . to give.

I cannot know, I cannot produce.
I cannot love, nor stay, nor be.
But those are old revelations.
No longer shocking - familiar facts
about inborn inadequacy. 

There is nothing I do NOT need.

Name any of it and you will have said my need.

To brave the frightful face of need is death to pride,
that self-feeding monster.
And those who refuse to need, will not have.
Abject need is a way to live, not
a sometime place to visit. 

The poverty I despise is the treasure I can trade.
Inadequacy is glory! Joy! divine gift of opportunity. 

My poverty is my jewel.
Need, the ladder straight to God.
The gospel comes - for the poor alone - like me. 

My need is energy that moves me . . .
the motivation of seeking,
the force of action
the fount of creativity! 

You have as much as you are willing to need.
You wait for Him only as you have no other source.
And when you wait . . . He comes.
Oh, glory! He answers need.
He visits poverty . . . only that - nothing else.

Jesus, the name of rich fulfillment,
Himself, the banquet of lavish provision.
He, the proffer of life's best,
Perfect Supplier of human insufficiency.
Jesus, Jesus. Only He. 

My need - its raw and gaping marrow -
belongs to Him . . . not to me,
not to you,
but to Him . . . Alone. 

Where my voracious needs are met,
there I will place an ever loyal faith.

Faith is not something you acquire as a gain.
It is what you are reduced to.
Stark faith in Father God is a humiliation,
the last thing you will consent to and
only when
all other rocks have crumbled . . .
as dust.

I gather all my untold needs
that I have sown, rootless, in
foreign soil,
and bring them to Your throne. 

I do not lay them at Your Feet,
nor place them in Your Hands.
I plant them in Your Bounteous Heart
to root there, richly to suffice
my every completion.

Copyright © 1999 Martha Blaney Kilpatrick