Weep with Me, September

Weep with me, September. The embers of these days burn with wakened grief— the thief came to kill, and all will not be well for a while yet. Where leaves and tears and people fell, we knelt, gaping, trembling, broken on these tokens of evil— my will and mind, lisping, your crisp, clean blue, the […]

Well Acquainted with Grief

Yes, He knew grief—knew him like an old enemy. From the first betrayal—all His care and attention pitched for a bite of fruit—through the latest— a kiss on the cheek, an 11-man flight, a swear word on the lips of his side-kick—His heart bled. He knew the whiplash of loss; He had stared into the […]

Surely He has born our Griefs

Jesus came to heal the sick the weak, the sad, the sore, the ones stretched out in dire need the wretched and the poor. – You thought He only saved from sins? But Have you never read: – Lame men walked and mute men talked. Peter’s mother lived. – Where e’er they met him, demons […]

October 7, 2023

Look upon our affliction and defend our cause I am too young to go. I want mother—I heard her voice sharp, frightened, panicked. I want her arms. “No, sister, no. Mother will come back. She has to make our supper.” Redeem us speedily for the sake of your name. They speak strange words. They shout, […]

The Gift of Grief

And maybe (somehow), off where grief will give loss becomes a better way to live

Morning Loss

Green umbrella by the ocean shifted into sifting sand— little grains of crystalled rock-dust blowing toward the endless blue. – She shifts and lays aside her novel, blue as water far away where the wave line meets the sky wall like eternal, bright and fey. – Up above, the halcyon sky shine scatters light; a […]

The Homecoming of Johnny McLeod

Pounding down the dusty trail, far up and off away, pounding toward McLeod place. Johnny comes home today. – A year ago, the snow still clumped in mounds of melting gray. A year ago he’d worn his sword— but now he comes home—to stay. – She hardly remembered the smell of his beard. She’d kissed […]

Thanksgiving: Pain

Father, thank You for the pain— a gentle honesty that holds the body in useless stillness to say, Any strength we have is given. Father, thank You for the sorrow— an earnest loyalty that rends the heart with throbbing losses to say, The only home we have is Heaven. –

Take the Lamp

It seems a cold, dark shaft where love would bid me go— deep beneath the hills. The memories, sand-like, blow— a heart-blinding draft. I’ve walked the caves before— walked them with a thief until the stars were gone; I know the haunting grief— and I cannot anymore. But I forget that love, with […]

Mary’s Tears

The night has taken Israel and drawn its blackness across the world like a shroud. The dark has bound us like our hopes, sealed up in a tomb. Does the God of Israel sleep? Does the LORD forget His people? A mother cannot sleep. A mother cannot forget her child. I have rocked him in […]