Weeks ago I emailed a woman
Whose purpose in the world is to
Raise funds for abortions in Texas
Her job is taking children
Out
I got an automated email in return
I will be out of the office until…because…
Maternity leave.
“It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.”
Even Voltaire had his foolish chains
I doubt he reveres them any longer
In the bowels of all
Eternity
I pull down the old book, look for recipes for cultivating children, like the time she sewed the earth with dragon’s teeth and made them into men…
I don’t want men
I want daisies
Dozens and dozens, hundreds and hundreds, legions and legions, fields upon fields
Filled with Bellis perennis–beauties everlasting
Because only God can
Make lasting
Children out of words
And wildflowers
They boarded the plane. Put their bags in overhead compartments. Scanned the list of drinks and snacks on what they thought would be a long flight. Buckled in the children. Watched the international pantomime for safety on an airplane. Assured flight attendants they were old enough for exit seats.
None of us are
Ready for the impact
The percussion, the fire, the fall
As though the story we had been always told about Icarus was a slanderous lie
He did not fly too close to the sun at all
No warning, no premonition, no string long enough to thread them free of
The labyrinth, the
Friendly fire
The moon ploughs up, silver boat on the sea of night. You see it all clear now, I suppose, about the way we become and belong to what or who we
Worship
If not love, then war
Which will
Tear a man to pieces.
Psalm 20:7 NIV
[7] Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
The cat thinks morning tea might lead to cream, or better yet–canned food. She follows me to the kettle and I tell her hope springs a turtle.
A quote from you, of course
You from the past
Me from the past. A person who seems so remote to me now.
I had to let you go
Would be content with a turtle
For all that hope
I had for you and me
Still eternal.
It is a line from a song sung by the super-heroic woman who can restore what has been lost or broken and I borrow it as I search for the little ones, so brave, so beloved
I want them all back, past undone
gordian-knotted he would say
Every family has a hot-head he would say
Oh my beautifuls,
All treasure
I started this blog eight years ago, when it became clear that no one was going to come to our rescue.
At that time the issue was my adopted son, who had sexually assaulted some of my children and some of the other children we knew, was being released from the Texas juvenile system. He would not have to register. His crimes had been lessened in a plea bargain, and then they were to be sealed.
We lived in the house where he had lived, where he had hurt the children.
I started the blog because I didn’t own a gun. I started the blog so there would be a record.
It has become more than all of that, and (at least so far) we have survived.
I believe in writing. I believe words can stand where people have walked away. So that is what lighthouse is about–a blog about fosters
Wherever you may find us.
Any day–today
We
could skitter down the concrete spillway, slide unceremoniously into
This river, dying leaves catch in our hair
We suspect we know who burned the burlap wedding gown used to dress the
Wounded tree
no way the boy could
have mistaken the signs of our ministration
For kindling
Yet, all has been
Inexplicably paid
by The Burlap Bridegroom
Who takes the flames
Restores the river
Revives the tree
And fashions
wedding clothes
Out of light
Matthew 25:10,13 NIV
[10] “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived…[13] “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.
I have grief, things I drag to the Cross.
Pictures so rough there is no other place to take them.
Jesus became horror the day he died.
All those damned pictures
Of the terrible we do or become.
He becomes the damned
Pictures
what if he had not?
Where would I go with this?
If all I had left was prone to burn
And God were just
A consuming fire?
Luke 23:44-45,48 NIV
[44] It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, [45] for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. [48] When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away.
Carrying Light 