How to want…to be His friend

You have to see past the blood—your own and his

The stinging sweat and the jeering crowds

The voice in your own pounding brain

Nay, voices—

Saying that no king of anything could die like this

Alone and vulnerable in the dumpster fire of all

You have to focus on his eyes

What he sees and what is reflected in them

Love beyond measure/sky without end

And you must listen to his voice

Agony is too small a word for what he has done for us

The fire of the wrath of a holy God

Substitutionary Everything

Nothing left without Him.

Someone has to watch out for bears

This was a long time ago

Four beautiful young women decided to go camping on a weekend in the spring. They drove to the hills of Virginia with a cooler full of food but no charcoal or lighter fluid.

They had not anticipated the crowds.

The only thing left was offsite camping

Grown ups took pity on them and gave them some properly grilled food when their firewood was green

They had set the tent up before dark but returned to it in the night

Prayer and a flashlight got them back to it in the dense spring woods

Once there, two slept easily

Confident the other two would

Stay alert for bears, and much worse, intruders in the dark

I teeter, I wobble

Never having impeccable balance

I swing between hope and chaos

One part of me veering toward extremes strangely reminiscent of sci-fi movies and teen melodrama—

Attempt to reproduce the metaphysical places that come to you in your dreams

Buy all the thrift store wedding dresses and parade about in them!

Become a true cave or island dweller…

I have become obsessive about the time

In Diomedes (big and little)

Howland and Baker Islands

He brings me rain to ease my heartbreak

And stories he has told with aplomb for millennia

A persistent widow

A mustard tree

A cry that goes out at midnight

And all those angels

Poised, always poised

To bring home those he loves