Isaiah 27:1 (NIV)
In that day, the Lord will punish with his sword, his fierce, great and powerful sword, Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent; he will slay the monster of the sea.
No, it is the child
Raised in a shambled house
With the dark monsters of uncertainty
Humorless play fellows
I want to say
Promise me
You will not hurt
This living child
This eternal being
Already bound
For sorrow
Isaiah 25:8,11 (NIV)
he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. The Lord has spoken. [11] They will spread out their hands in it, as a swimmer spreads out his hands to swim. God will bring down their pride despite the cleverness of their hands.
Kept having the same dream
The water be gone
I look for it
Missing
Watch it pour down
Look to the clouds for rain
Plead to the Lord
Rain.
Rain come down
Wash my sin away
Give me the hands
To spread through
The water
The pool
Source of the
Girl I once was
We have to talk about it
Even though we don’t want to
The ways we are broken
The way the past haunts me
I don’t think it haunts you
The same
Like two different ghosts
Mine brings me beautiful picture
Then wryly points to
The darkness behind them
And yours
Merely piles
Rejection letters on your desk
From all the cool people
And the clubs they go to
Without us
It was a solar eclipse
Splashing darkness
Across half the earth
Like a child stretching his blanket
Across the bare
Wood staircase–
Upstairs young man!
His mother admonishes
Never realizing
His life is the smallest
Gossamer thread
From her life to mine
They say
if you try
To look
Directly into the sun
During an eclipse
Seek professional help
Do they mean scientists or
Psychology?
I won’t know.
I just
Know
That staring
Straight into the
Face of God himself
Is impossible hubris
Unless…
The shadow of the Cross
Shields the mortal
Eye
Definitions of forgiveness
1. The Man on the Cross bleeding love out in each dying breath
2. The little girl abused until she was five who is so afraid of hell (thanks to Dante Alighieri) who says:
Even though it still hurts
To know what Charles
Did to me
I don’t want him
To go to hell
The pain of it all
Never ebbing
From her beautiful
Face.
The trajectory of flight
And the living animal in it
The color of the leaves
And the way they
Flutter to the earth
Gravity
And it’s seemingly integral role
In mating
Our divided selves
I understand my friend ignores
All these signs of his Creator
Blithely…
My little boy walks into
The room to talk to me
Small words in utter sincerity
And the perfect miracle of his face
Divine.
How can you not see?
The gift this child is?
The soft reflection
Of eternity in his eyes
Once
There was the statue
Of a girl
Standing arms outstretched
Poised/face lifted
To reach the rain
Receiving Grace
I looked for her again
Years ago
They had taken her away
I am crying/she is missing
And all I can do is call to her
Come back
My heartbreaking daughter
Come back to the Garden
Of stones alive and flowers
Blooming now
The rain has come
You will say to me
Why are you grieving?
And I will show you the limp form
In my hands
You will ask
What is it?
And I will say
A dead salamander
You will say
They cannot live for long
And I will say
But it had a name–
I cannot say it
And you will ask
What is the big deal?
And I will tell you
Hope.
But what I will not say is that the prone and lifeless
Body of a man
Too easily resembles
This ephemeral creature
The day I spent for him
The last day I spent for him
Looking for a hat
Big enough to cover his fatal
Head injury
Fatal head injury
Never far from mind
The bodies of our dead.
There was a moment in time when I held them
My babies
Fear flooded my mind
So that the moment/the babies/the mother I was then
Is cut into amber
She breaths in and out deliberately
Wanting to shelter
These two little ones
From inevitable Monsters
I see the light
Pouring out
Over the lawn at night
The girls in their pretty
Dresses fan out in the lines
Demarcating light and darkness
Can you hear the haunting
Music?
I can
The strings of slow lament
The partygoers
Lurching toward the wrought
Iron gates
Boozy and fatigued
Wondering
who will show us the way home?
Carrying Light 