Holy Grief

The form was never alien to me— I knew the burning long before the name inscribed its letters on my heart in flame, my tiny lungs pronouncing agony— the ancient sorrow screamed through infancy. I learned the war on tears; I battled shame. I learned to swallow pain and look the same as stoics hailing […]

Nighttime Dance

The nightly sky was licorice the trees were chocolate foam, the moon was sighing happily and seemed to feel at home. The dogs were dancing gangily, their shadows lit the lawan: silhouettes we’d never heard that nighttime seemed to spawn. The flowers gambled gracefully and cheered like winter mice, while groundhogs bounded through the air […]

Let There Be Light

Darkness deep and long as Sabbath, deeper than a well, clinging on like dust to footprints empty like a shell. Hear! a voice, here intonation words abound today. Someone spits into the dust-road cakes his eyes in clay. Now he’s groping slowly onward toward Siloam’s pool, eager heart in racing footfalls though he feels the […]

Remember?

“and this rain is nothing, really. there was the time it poured, out of the blue–or nearly (nothing’s ever quite out of the blue) and stayed 5 whole days so that our gutters overran and the kids splashed in the front yard pond. But the sun came out, burned through that gauzy cloud. It will […]

To sleep,

to lay aside the blear of toil and resting unafraid, to lay yourself in softness royal and feel the blank of bliss; to give oneself in utter up-ness up to smoothest night, to lose your fears and sleep in faith-ness to trust and wake with light; to close the sight and see the stories dance […]

Risen Indeed

Lift your eyes, oh see the promise made to prophets long ago, One who comes to crush the serpent stands upon His conquered foe. Rises from the gates that held him, breaks the seal upon His grave, rises whole, and round about Him crowd the souls His life has saved. – All the fathers ever […]

Substitute

The righteous begged and screamed to kill—my condemnation ringing in His ears.The scourgers dug deep trenches into flesh—my pain gushing from His veins.The soldiers hailed the imprisoned King—my shame unclothing Him. The nails fastened Him hard to grief—my sin setting Him to hang. The wrath of the Father crushed Him there—my sentence served. His breathing struggled, slowed, and […]

Slowly Onward

Slowly wending down the path slowly, on a donkey. Back and forth and jostled ‘round toward the gates of promise. Up toward gates as pilgrims stream up where faithful gather, souls of those who tend their souls, onwards toward the temple. Shout it out along the road, Hosannah, son of David! Bless the One who […]

One Road

One road, laid out ages before the birth, stone by stone, step by step through common dirt. One road, and only One able to walk the length, the thorny way testing yet proving His strength. One road, unthinkable to us, but onward He trod through the cross, through the tomb, to the right hand of […]

Spring out

Strike sparks like sun-stream slashes slanting through the sky. Step lively, like the weeds of twining green-sprig sliding up through cracks. Sing bravely, like the trilling notes of flit birds switching branch to branch through all the city tree-loets past the hubbub hurried rush of people pandemonium to tell the city (cars and all) the […]