Days of red roses
All traded in
For what I believed to be
Rich soil beneath:
A place to grow
A fertile space for roots.

Every grain of dirt
Is an island
Fords are overwhelmed
By floods
And what use are roots
Without blooms?

I sold myself
For a song
For a steal
And all that makes me valuable now
Is the cross-ransom I still know
My sweet Jesus paid.

So foolish-
All these years hoping,
Putting faith in
Coping mechanisms
Like organic metaphors
And you
My safest place,
My deepest trust,
Based on dreams I had alone.

Halfway round the world
Just to see
But I saw-
It’s all the same.
We are what we are,
And will never be
What we are not.
Safety is an illusion,

And also honorable men.

I’m broke down
Maybe for good this time
And it’s all on me.
There was a day
I could see my case
Filed against everybody
But those courts settled,
That dust fell,
And it’s all on me.

Sin is an ugly word,
An uglier deed,
And mine multiplies
In horror, I try, but
I can’t weed out my poison
Only I can see clearly now
I know now
We’re all like this.
We’re all an ugly horror.

We hold our hands
In each other’s filth
We try to believe
It’s all okay
Understandable,
Explainable,
Forgivable.
I know now:
It isn’t.

Not on its own,
For what it is.

Pink sky in morning
Warning me
Of the oncoming storm

My hatches are battened,
All but one
Waiting for him to come home

All lies still
On our quiet hillside
And still I listen with all my will

For the howling banshees I know
Of wind and spirit that go fleeing
Before the tsunami of snow

Soon to curl up under its robe of white,
To sleep in the spotless night:
A promise fulfilled in plain sight.