One sure-footed day,

I chanced to glance sideways

and glimpsed a little speck of trouble

flying at me from the west. 

I ran,

I stumbled,

I tripped.

The earth beneath me slipped,

tipping up like a mighty ship 

before succumbing to the sea.

Someone let the tornadoes out inside my head,

the roaring forces smashing through to shred

my life before my eyes,

and, hopeless out among the flat debris,

I crawled then let the tears fall where I lay.

How could I hold the world up for another day???

•••

From beyond the gloom, I heard your soft “Ahem”

and sensed Your presence where You’d always been—

Almighty God tending to the world,

my kind Lord bending close to me—

changed by neither fact nor fancy.