The thorn is still in the wound
So the pain stays acute,
But it’s a lie if my cries
Leave gratitude mute.
I am summarily thankful.
You’ve been generous in my need.
My praise derails because of details.
I feel shock as I bleed.

Don’t forget me.
Don’t let me forget Your faithfulness.

If only I could see this thing from Your vantage point.

Something about this place
Urges me to stay
But how do I move on
If I don’t move away?
I see it isn’t their fault
And what’s wrong with me

Will always be.

Watching in secret-
I see why they hid it.
I’m not mad anymore.
I understand why they did it,
They had their own lives,
Priorities and utilities,

And I was never their responsibility.

You said not to see it so,
But this place has been
Utterly humiliating
Remind who I am again
Show yet more kindness
Like You have from the start

Will anyone be tender with my heart?
I think I should wall off that hope next.

Help me to deeply, truly forgive.
Give me the wisdom to live

This new future I must excavate

Alone.

On the back nine
With a stroke count so high
It’s gotta be beyond repair.
I worked hard to get here
Chopping the green out from under the ball
From the get go, I got it all

Wrong.

Trying to get to the end
I’m playing it where it lands,
But not for keeps, not to win
When there’s a club in my hands

I swing it.

Leaving this place
Is leaving behind much of me.
But what else may help
The woman I used to be

Love again

How foolish to still care.

Why voice it?
She shouldn’t even try
A life spent
In the do or die

Wasted like prodigal coins

A woman no one loved

I don’t deserve what I have
I don’t belong enough to stay
But they’ll be nothing left of me
When I finally go away

Whenever I leave this time
My heart stays behind.

Forgive me, Father
My voice has been a viscous flood!
Forgive every pelting word of flesh,
Blind in faithlessness, exacting blood,
Daring You to bare Your arm
With judgements I myself deserve
On my knees, I repent all these,
Do what You have reserved
For hearts that will not yield
Not my will, but Yours be done.
Forgive all who repent, from me too,
And help me to swiftly run
The race that’s set before me.
I believe You. I believe it all.
Thank You for humbly being with me
When all my towers began to fall
And I would have been crushed
By the crashing stones
But You walked with me as a shield.
I was never alone
Even when I accused it.
Be for others what You have been for me.
The world would be tedious, pointless,
Except for Your sharp kindness and beauty.

Radiating like a beacon.

Keep making Masterpieces
Masterfully.

I’ve had time to settle,
But I still can’t diagnose
What exactly happened,
What caused the death blows
To all the life we built

On my shoulders, I feel I carry
Though I can’t extensively name,
Much or all of the responsibility,
The burden and the blame
For what my children lost.

I’ve spent a life in constant conference
Stepping out on the count of three
Only to look around and discover
It’s only me
And a forced juggle.

I’m tired.

I’m sorry when I blame
Anyone besides myself
I don’t know how others think
How they live, how their health
Directs their decisions
Impacts their social worth
With my life résumé
No corner of the moving, shaking earth
Will ever belong to me
I can’t hold it; I’m too weak.
Unless God in His grace
Bestows it to the meek

And exalts the humbled
With the impossible ability
Of bearing the weight consistently

Without falling to a knee.

For my part, there’s nothing left
But to depart as bereft
Spare no goodbyes,
Bury all other tries
And forget how it felt that brief day,
For a moment, I believed I could be okay

On my own two feet.

In the pale light of morning
After waking to a wonderland
Sheeted white and untraversed
A thousand delights at hand
My children dance around me
Unrehearsed and unrestrained
Joy and awe and love and hope
Proceeding in unbroken train.

They say how glad they are
I am home with them to see
The piles of snow, because the snow
Always reminds them of me.
I feel the flurries behind my eyes
And blink away the grief
I pull them in and hold them close
Each touch a deep relief.

I hope each embrace is immortal
Each one may somehow convey
The wealth of all my love,
All I don’t know how to say.
If I am ever old, on a morning
Breaking gray, cold and dim,
In a house full of empty rooms
I will watch each snowflake thin

Dance and frolick in the wind,
And in it, I will see each of them
Dancing as they used to do
And I will weep with gratitude

For every precious hour.

A snow map helped me find my way
Into this tiny town
That has grown in value to eclipse
Every prior abode, hands-down.
Now the desired snow falls
Filling this space to the brim
But it’s colder in the exposure
Without the illusion of him
Memory like the snow
Sometimes conceals, sometimes reveals
Time is a wet-toothed shape-shifter
It hides instead of heals

I wish I had some solid ground
To hold and support my feet
What I have wrought, what has become,
Subdues me, leaves me incomplete

Always working for what stays out of reach.

Tiny crystals in the light
Shimmer, flake, and fall
Collecting in a gathered dance
Covering all
The look of fresh and pure
Painting over yesterday’s road
But somewhere underneath
Frozen, amnesic loads
The same ruts are carved
If you step out, too bold,
You may trip beneath the drift
Slip asleep beneath the cold
The earth is old, but the newness of snow
Beckons appeal in pale patina
With whitewashed skin over rotting bones
What hides below the icy arena
Isn’t clean.