Tag Archives: Jesus

Instrumental to My Soul

Long past
Were these days present?

Some faint nostalgia calls
Like the black keys
The progression of fingerfalls
Dancing through the misery
And I was before language
When the notes played a masterpiece
Swirling through ivories and time
Did it transport me
To these days? To some beauty
That must still search out my soul?

It’s a corridor with two open doors
I felt forward; I now see back through
I hear the piano recollecting
Tenderly, as a primrose blooms,
How it sang years to me
While mine were still new
I have vague impressions
In smokey-ocean grays and blues
Of feeling these happenings approaching
Before one of them came true
Not in detailed view,
But as a series of emotional collisions.

But if, as a child, I could feel,
If, through the notes, I could see
Why did I always believe
A great Love was ahead of me?

Could I feel straight through to eternity?
Is that why I still feel Love is nearer to me?
Even closer than I think?

The Great Love Who calls and grants vision,

Who tells you what He is doing
Long before it appears,
Who describes His works
Before they draw near,
Who announces Himself,
Who blinds kings,
But gives children and paupers

The privilege to see.


May 29th, 2025

I awoke this morning,
To the same repetitions
Ending with coffee on the porch
Thinking of my night’s petitions
Into silence and inertia
Asking why no one cared,
Why I must remain unloved;
So close to accusation, I was scared.

Coffee in hand now,
My children gather
Around a small dead sparrow
Lifeless little feathers
In front of our home,
In the center of our path
And my daughter, deeply moved,
Asks what kind of life it had.
I tell her I don’t know,
But not a bird falls to earth
Outside of His care
And I wonder if my worst

Can still be hidden in His best.


Way of Life

Faint, I hear on winds of spring,
As little bells whose giggles ring,
Recollections gray of our beginnings
Chiming through to this new morning

And You are new
My Ancient of Days.

How dark those bitter nights
Must have been, dark sights
Broken, jagged childhood delights
Snarling in crooked-toothed fright

And I begged You for death,
O Giver of Life.

How those moments undone
Dissolved one by one
Like snow exposed to a gentle sun
As You held me in a garden

Sweating in fervor
For my redemption.

I glimpsed You lifting
Gold from death’s ashen rift
I waited, in sorrow adrift,
For You to sift

The precious from the worthless,
As You continually do.

I never dreamed this well.
You established me:
Your daughter, a mother, a wife.
I begged for the release of death,
But You gave instead the embrace of life

Giver of every good and perfect gift.


Special Providence

Let today ever be the day
I seek Your face
My sins aplenty remain
Hidden in Your mysterious grace
I am washed clean,
Seated well at the table

In an unearned place.

Let today ever be the day
I walk the winding narrows
Into all the world
Bowing before no Pharoahs,
But kneeling for the least of these.
And if I pass from life to life,

Bear me up with the sparrows.


She Groans

The virgin cried out
In tremors of foreign pains
Gripping her fullness
In throated, desperate strains
She proclaimed her hallelujah
Hunted, she harbored an eternal reign
Struggling through the gift
Bestowing the timeless name
On her wondrous little boy
In blood and water, it remains
Her agonizing cry of triumph.

Tomorrow’s journey
May lead Your humble maidens
Through unknown cries
Our names will fade and
Tears shed will evaporate
Rising to a heaven laden
But majesty shines in mangers
The grave itself gave in
After suffering reached full term
All these pangs, we trust You’ve laid them
In Your eternal treasury

As our hallelujahs.


Interrogative Response

I remember staring
Through the window by my bed
At the great forked tree
Reaching to the skies overhead
Around a taller branch we’d tethered
A thick rope- upon it, a swinging-flyer
Rounded-seat, my father severed
From a massive tire
And I watched the river’s genesis
Through the lush leaves self-aware
In sparkling metamorphosis
And I knew You were there,
Do You remember?
I know You do.

I asked You to be everything to me.


Closed Doors and Open Prayers

I don’t want to take anything from anyone,
Except their idols,
And the years wasted
Tending abandoned temples
In a darkened land,
The shadow proves the sunshine.
I lay in the sensate awareness
As a frangible child
And supine in a puddle
You drown.
Addicts bite
When you touch their stash
Of chemical responses
As graven images
But You led me out,
And taught me to stand.
Men prescribe the wrong medicine;
The true remedy of which
I’m living proof
Is hidden in plain sight:
Bold faith in Your word,
Untethered to the weights
Of human compensations.
Life’s too brief
To preach to gnashing teeth
And hands clasped
Over ears that refuse to hear,
And You lead me out again-
I will not forget
Where I began, why I am here,
All these years after my death
Redeemed by Your kind intention-
Grace as a burning coal
Forcing motion
Enabling no sins, but
Crippled legs learn to stand
Inside their infirmities;
I run to eternity,
And on the way to Jerusalem
I do not pack the household gods.
I strip the altars I find
In the lofty places
Right under Your nose,
Because You’ve tenderly shown
They are foul death to us all.
There’s an organic soil
Cultivating health,
And overlooked by the self-wise,
The self-absorbed, the self-made men
Whose structures pave the soil
They grew out of,
And I don’t fault them all;
I hand them over to their desires,
And Your wisdom.
I strip away these layers…

And what remains?
Fish on a beach.
Sweating alone in a garden.
Sandals road-worn.
A family found.
Moments planted, not hoarded.
Life abundant in micro-units,
And may I follow You-
Lay down my own nets,
Take up my cross,
And pound the earth
With willing feet
Bearing out the gospel
As You did.

If You are willing,
Make us well.
Lead us.
Defend us.
Teach us to resist assault,
Temptation, and inertia,
Stepping forward in intimacy:
A second language
Far from fluent, but framed in affection-
Teach us, Teacher.
We strive to bow the knee
To You alone,

God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.


Dearest Companion

I’m thinking of our timeline-
A million collisions of grace
Affection and loyalty
You showed in the face
Of my unworthiness,

Because my unworthiness
Is curable in Your pierced hands.

My heart brims with gratitude
My Father, my Brother, my Friend
My ever-constant Redeemer
My Betrothed in the end
And Your love letters abound

Every breath You’ve supplied
Is a gift of life
And I am found in this:

Thank you.


Father God

Tiny baby legs
Shuffle by in stampede
Chubby baby cheeks
Giggle with glee
And I laugh out loud
As praise to You,
Who in tender mystery
Formed all things new.

I’m in awe of all You do.


It is Now

He pulled close to us
In creation, forming by delicate hand,
So close His breath filled our lungs.
Mankind learned to stand
Inside His tender proximity.

He pulled close to us
In manger hay and baby skin,
Walking in unbreakable love
Not counting our sin
But for the payment He would make.

He pulls close to us,
The day is nearly here!
As a ship approaches the harbor,
With His Father at the steer,
He stands giddy in the prow.

He is so close,
Radiating joy through all alarms
If I lived ninety years
It would only be falling forward into His arms.