Monthly Archives: August 2013

Weaving Gray

These rainy days seep in;
Drops soak the thoughts underneath.
Ink greedily sips them.
Reason slowly bleeds
Into the beauty of the blend.

Perhaps this means I’ve sinned,
But God hangs on regardless;
My ever constant, stalwart friend
While I fail every hard test
With flying colors every time.

He piles grace upon my crimes.
I get to breathe, even smile.
These thoughts, once maligned,
Are washed from the vile
By the gracious rain He pours on me:
A touch of clean, a taste of free.

Gray holds all the beauty of gold.


Fire Dancing on Water

Reflection of reflection-

How sure I speak in these dreams.

Ghosts grasp the in-betweens,

Force me in the wrong direction.

 

Air burned away as you spoke,

It burned into my chest.

I finger the scars; ingest

Fragmented hope, warmth cloaked.

 

I walk down by the bed, waters sleep.

Your face ripples there, then dies.

Are you from water or sky?

Reflected from high, returning from the deep?

 

Sleepless eyes strip the earth.

Did you leave your bones for me to find?

A last goodbye, a bitter wine.

Did I invent your death, your life, your birth?

 

Ancient songs rumble low, turn the sea.

Guttural truths, in wind, advance.

Victims of our circumstance.

Exposed; you never wrapped your strength on me.

 

Hoarded safety.


White as Snow

I was yet a child the day I went

To a basement room with painted cement,

And I saw Jesus in flannel, in nails;

I saw sometimes love is in the details.

I cried when I saw the blood on His hands.

He was bleeding for me, my sin demands

The blood on His hands.

I grew older; the world grew wild.

I saw war, and pain, and child against child.

I read of the Creator’s sovereignty

But I couldn’t see good ruling supreme.

So I cried when I saw blood on His hands.

How could He have loved us, and still have planned

The blood on His hands.

Through darkest night, the call came in.

I rushed to the hospital, to my friend,

Whose love was bleeding out on the table.

I watched the doctor’s hands, strong and stable.

And I cried when I saw blood on his hands.

How could he face this mess, how could he stand

The blood on his hands.

God’s ways are mysterious, how He moves

Under the surface, but He always proves

The depths of His love, the cost of His grace.

I understand now, He bleeds in my place.

I cry for joy at the blood on my hands.

I am whole, forgiven, loved, and cleansed

By the blood from His hands.


Shaped

The wind must have changed.

Pruning season, my dead limbs fall

Lifeless, dry, beloved.

I grasp the death that thralls.

I hold it against myself, my soul,

Pressed against where it was severed

But death doesn’t grow.

It can’t be grafted or tethered.

At once, the limbs appear foreign.

Tossed back to a shallow grave,

I shuffle on, weightless, sore,

I wonder what the loss has saved,

I wonder at my design.


Shadowspin

Long and low, these labyrinthian hours

Taper between moon and sun.

Shadows of our vital powers

Throw farther, nearly done.

Sent all away, barred the door,

Kept out to keep within.

When the pinnacle hemorrhages more

Silence instructs the inmost of man.

Turned once, the earth revolves again,

A kaleidoscope of hearts and hands.

Some inflict, redeem, resolve,

So it spins round where it stands.