<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Irresistibly Fish]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://brettfish.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[brettfish]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://brettfish.wordpress.com/author/brettfish/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[twice prodigal]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p> like writing poetry but i haven&#8217;t had the motivation to write something for a long time, but here is one i wrote a long time ago which i really like which a lot of you will not have read&#8230;</p>
<ul>
TWICE PRODIGAL </ul>
<p>Have I walked this path?</p>
<p>I can not remember having come this way before;</p>
<p>Yet&#8230; strange feeling of familiarity haunts me</p>
<p>As each step I take brings me closer to home&#8230;</p>
<p>I still taste the pods I fed those wretched swine</p>
<p>A plague reminder of my sin and shame upon my tongue</p>
<p>Hazy images of the land I&#8217;m walking:</p>
<p>Imagination..</p>
<p>&#8230;or memory?</p>
<p>Something is not quite right</p>
<p>Can&#8217;t put my finger on it</p>
<p>Inheritance grasped&#8230;</p>
<p>Relationship squandered.</p>
<p>&#8230;and now returning to beg mercy and forgiveness</p>
<p>A Father&#8217;s compassion&#8230;</p>
<p>A butchered calf celebrating a life once lost</p>
<p>Now returned from the grave</p>
<p>&#8230;could it be?</p>
<p>Is it even possible?</p>
<p>NO!</p>
<p>That could never happen!</p>
<p>It wouldn&#8217;t!</p>
<p>It mustn&#8217;t&#8230;</p>
<p>Must&#8230;not&#8230;</p>
<p>But yet&#8230;</p>
<p>I find myself walking a path somewhat recognisable to me</p>
<p>A robe hangs across my shoulders &#8211; faded, torn.</p>
<p>Ring on my finger with shiny glint, long lost&#8230;</p>
<p>Forgotten?</p>
<p>Dirt-stained sandals worn beneath my tired feet&#8230;</p>
<p>Surely this is my first journey home&#8230;</p>
<p>Yes! &#8211; my mind is just playing tricks</p>
<p>That&#8217;s it&#8230; no one would return home to such love and acceptance</p>
<p>Only to turn his back and set out once more?</p>
<p>Nobody cured of blindness deliberately erases their sight</p>
<p>Pushes away the embrace of unconditional forgiveness</p>
<p>Heads back towards the shadowy abyss&#8230;</p>
<p>NO!</p>
<p>This is it.</p>
<p>It is me&#8230;</p>
<p>And I am walking home</p>
<p>Back to a place I knew</p>
<p>To a father who hasn&#8217;t stopped loving</p>
<p>Looking out&#8230;</p>
<p>Awaiting my return.</p>
]]></html></oembed>