Revelation 21

Posted on September 6, 2019 by Elea Lee

Revelation 21:1 KJV

[1] And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

The whole world just a shotgun shack with the big fig tree in the backyard. We used to swing there on the old swing set, first for just us children, then the one even old people could sit in.

So clear in my mind

What passed away meant to you, meant to me, its euphemistic weight gone with all the passings, you, then grandpa, then dad

Passed away you would say then, whereas now there are no euphemisms, no ways of hiding

What the new looks like

All filled with glory.

Contemplating Hell

Posted on August 29, 2019 by Elea Lee

He says that I have lost my chance with him, as though he is a lottery ticket torn from my grasp by a strong wind in a storm, fluttering away with its winning numbers and it promise of untold riches.

I have lost my chance with him.

A week ago I stood in the Salvation Army and showed my youngest daughter a tee shirt–got love? Become a foster parent.

Her face clouds. Her life was radically altered by my decision to foster parent.

You had your chance with me…

He was small and scratched his face into bloody tiger stripes, he did not speak at almost two years of age. He did not potty train until just before kindergarten. He once desecrated a couch in a strange feral way.

The stories of my chances with him could fill terrible books.

I get it kid, you have a new god now.

But I am haunted by what will happen to you if you don’t have the guts to contemplate

The hell you unleashed on all of us and all it’s damning consequences.

A Chance of Rain

Posted on August 27, 2019 by Elea Lee

I think just to mess with me, the weather app will place one small storm cloud on the far horizon of days. I tell myself, the light is moving away, the days grow short, the heat will break, these are just shoes in a messy front hallway, seemingly lost and matchless, discardable, but

Make no sudden moves

Until the rains come

House painters

Posted on August 22, 2019 by Elea Lee

The house blinks and dozes as the men apply coats of new paint, let their music waft over privacy fences, over all of us

Little bits of 80s anthems, power ballads from the past,

Is it that easy?

To summon joy?

Apogee

Posted on August 17, 2019 by Elea Lee

The girl-child mama ties her daughters to her–kites, they rise

Aloft in the summer breeze

Curl, swirl, dip, and sing

Bird-children

While faraway grandmother

Ponders apogee

The furthest point one can be from another.

The Space Between Us

Posted on August 16, 2019 by Elea Lee

I see the man making models of planets in his meticulous, scienc-y basement then lining them up like a photographer arranging and rearranging a family portrait,

Mercury, you stand here…Jupiter if you could squeeze in by the ping-pong table

Or the final run and podium judgment of the Westminster Dog Show

It is a neat trick

Of human folly to think we can order the objects floating in an infinite sky, make them feel smaller than they are, more manageable

When even the moon is beyond us

Its insistent pull and reflective splendor

Missed so often in the ordinary

Night sky

As we pack all the objects of this solar system

Between us

Furniture against the door of Love

When you get lonely

Posted on August 10, 2019 by Elea Lee

Go for a run in a safe, well-lit place

Sing your God songs, loud if possible

Kick around in the Gospels, the Jesus stories, the Bible project, CS of course

Ask Him direct questions

We love you sooo much

But He is love–

oceans-are-small-compared-love

No-story-too-small-love

Big-sky-love

Lonely awful die-for-us love

Lend us a child like you, Love

Arms wide open love

The stars are more than fire love

In the dark sky they admonish/love

He will never leave you, never walk away

Dear Heart,

Posted on August 10, 2019 by Elea Lee

I keep thinking about the video of you when you were wee, all dumpling, sass, and wild curls. You were getting ready for something, and judging by your cute little dress, something liturgical. Your dad told you to say goodbye to the camera, but you misunderstood him and thought it was me.

You protested, but she’s my mommy!

Seems like both yesterday and three lives ago.

There are no words for how much you mean to me.

No words for how hard it is to close the book on the always with you chapter of your life.

I love you

All you have been to me

All the joy you are to me.

Poured out perfume which fills the room

Forever.

Love,

But-she’s-my-mommy

The parable of the retold

Posted on August 4, 2019 by Elea Lee

I remember you

I remember when you ran into the waiting room with your sister

I remember all the warnings and admonitions I got from Martha-the-caseworker and your recently relieved first foster mom

And your blue-as-the-sea implacable gaze across a very misguided table

I remember your speech therapist and her fairy godmother-like delight in seeing you make eye contact and in watching your self-inflicted facial wounds

Heal and not return

Storms all over the place

Storms in you swirled all around us, even when I tried to contain them.

The Way Love Anchors

Posted on August 4, 2019 by Elea Lee

I wonder, did he stick to the margins of the day? Hold palms aloft for shade? Trudge through the seasons? Chafe at this appointed endeavor?

Think, “surely this will vouchsafe my peaceful demise?”

I do not know anything except

The hours he had

Squinting into morning sky, evening sky

Lovely clouds, all sea foam and flocks

Anchored by love

Isaiah 40

Carrying Light

Words for light

Category Archives: Poetry