Tag Archives: Life

Just So

And has there ever been, from birth
Any moment, or breath,
Some collision of word, or flesh,
That was ever anything of worth

Without You wrapped in it?

We dig our gardens, our graves,
Passing our rote to little minds,
Studying tides, and stars, and all kinds
Of grasping, assuming we’re saved

By our tasks and do we miss You?

Let the floods commence
Eroding our mud breaches
Folding in on what we teach is
Our greatest recompense:

The surviving members of creation.

You will come with mighty roar
Like the oceans we adore
And our proud knees will drop
And our hard hearts will stop in our proud chests

On the dry shores of our vested interests.

Will we forget our complex knots?
Our webs of assent, the tangles
Of all the wisdom we’ve mangled
And all the lies we’ve bought,

And peddled.

Even so, Lord Jesus, come.


August Ruminations

Here sits the castle of my soul,
Touched by rot and ruin,
Cramped and narrow,
Housing doubts, fears, confusion
Standing room only

This aged mansion
Can’t hold the immensity
The vast expansion
Or colored intensity
Of a summer sunset.

Man from clay,
But here I lie, on earthen hill,
My corridors splay
Insufficient to fill,
To swallow the ground beneath

Incapable of cleansing my stains,
Or repairing my breach,
Created: I cannot contain
These elements beyond my reach
Beyond my reason

But even they have a first:
God’s handiwork unfurled.
He fills to burst the
Confines of this world
That cannot contain Him.

And how small am I?
Woven in the womb’s darkness
By His delicate design
And omnipotent sparks
Of fragility and fate

And I ask Him to abide
In this broken abode.
I ask Him to hide Himself inside,
This God I know
Of fire and radiance

I ask Him into this crumbled pittance
Decaying more each season,
Because denying Him admittance
Is no small treason,

This Creator who can neither be contained,
Nor restrained,
Nor ever moves He in vain.


Rebel Yell

My morose flows
Like a shallow stream carving,
A waking dream,
A beggar starving,
But there’s a well in me
Swelling waters in the deeps of me
That ripple insurrection
The deepest introspections
Dredge my recklessness:
I won’t let this mess own me
I won’t succumb quietly
Shaking these lies I’ve invented,
I’ve invited in to stay,
And made their bed
I’ve fed them my hours,
My future, my vital powers,
But I’m done, I scour them off my walls
Because all this-
It’s just a distraction
A fraction of my purpose,
And there is a reason I wait,
Why every few seasons
I shake off my possessions,
Reminding me I’m not what I have,
And it doesn’t have me.
I am free
Because of the word He has spoken
I am broken,
And unbreakable

Because He made this knowledge,
This vision, this raging existence
Unshakeable in Himself.
I am who I have,
And He has me.


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.