erosion

Deep downstream the current flows,
Erosion of a river bank.
Worn away by time, it knows
It's rugged land will be reshaped.

Sea glass tumbling in the waves
That salty, crash against the shore.
Pounding purifies and saves
Til finally made smooth and pure.

Block of purest marble white,
Inside a hidden sculpture see.
Sculptor's tools will chip away-
Come chip away at me.

Your potter's hands will mold the clay,
Softly spinning, spinning still.
Take your time, build me and break
And make me something you can fill.

my enemy

The shining glint of silver caught my eye,
Danced like a flame inside my mind.
When I was so cold and lost in night
It called out to me, drawing me closer,
Closer to the edge.
Twisting, twisting my words
Into a pattern fed by hurt,
Locked into a rhyme, a shape
A rhythm I could not escape.

It said
"Your bondage I'll break, relief I'll send,
I'm not your enemy."
But the verse I wrote with that bloody pen
Was anything but free.
How did I let the hero become
My self-destructive deeds?
I suppose that when the day was done
My enemy was me.

Trapped in days of endless rhyme,
Addicted to the sounds-
Carefully crafting perfect lines,
Syllables and wounds.
What would it take to break away
From what I had become?
Feeding myself with the pain,
Motionless and numb.

Then He said
"Your bondage I'll break, relief I'll send,
You can trust in me.
I've written it on the hearts of men,
The truth will set you free."
So I traded my knives and blades for a sword
That didn't slit or sting.
The sword of the Spirit, God's holy word,
Gave me a new song to sing.

Words not formed on my own tongue,
You've made your music mine.
Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
Now breaking from the rhyme.

scream

It feels like kiwi skin-
Prickly sensation down my spine.

It tastes tart to the tongue-
Surge of sugar, key lime pie.

It looks like a zigzag pattern,
On the heart rate monitor.

It sounds like a soda can,
Popping, fizzing, pent-up pressure.

Its feels like cold metal
Against my bare skin.

It tastes like acid
In my throat worn thin.

It looks like an empty birdhouse
Sitting alone in a tree.

It sounds like silence
Covering up a scream.

eggshells

How a vase holds up its flowers,
Steady, nourishing, stands tall.
How a nest carries a robin's eggs,
Never lets them, fragile, fall.
A refuge, warm and welcoming,
When into your arms I crawl-
Hold me together when I am breaking,
All alone and feeling small.

A wilted flow'r, plucked from the earth,
Shell broken, I fell down
From the tree with branches mighty
To the dry and cracking ground.
You picked me up and held me,
Still and strong, without a sound-
In your embrace remade me,
I once was lost but now am found.

candle wax

The scalding water
Streams over my sleepy shoulder blades,
Melting away the drowsiness
That covers me like candle wax.

The early morning washes over me,
Reluctant though I be,
For in dreams I was the tallest candle.

Now the heat distorts my shape
As water shoots from my wrinkled fingers,
Extending, sparkling, to the shower floor below,
And pooling there around my toes.

Steam rises, soporific-
Coating the room in dreamy droplets and mist,
Damp and humid,
And slowly lulling me back
Into my sleep-like state.

The water pounds against my body
In an almost rhythm,
Soothing, smoothing,
Melting, molding.

Awake! Awake!
The sun peeks down,
Touching my tip
And awakening my wick.
I soak in the new day,
A candlestick with a single flame.

A little bit smaller
With each kiss of the sun,
Awake, awake!
The wax will run.
Each weary morning
Til my work is done.

lunar eclipse

Wonders of
The human eye,
The way a lens
Can bend the light.
An iris with
Blue thread crocheted,
Woven round
Black void of space.

So dark within
That stormy sphere,
Who would know
It was truly clear?
The pupil widens,
Embracing the light.
We see straight through
To the retina behind.

Center of color
With rods and cones,
Fovea centralis-
Dividing rainbows.
The lunar eclipse
That I see in your eyes
Is truly a palette,
All colors combined.

pink lemonade days

I took a sip of the warm summer sun
As it shone down so sweetly,
Tenderly touching the trunk
Of an old oak tree.

I ran my eager hand
Along its rugged surface,
Ancient and rough,
And I felt so young,
With hands so soft-
So easily bruised and splintered.

I asked the tree,
"Why are you so rough?"
For afternoons are soft with sunshine,
Light and smooth
With delicate daisies peeking through.

And the tree said to me,
"The grass withers
And the flowers fade,
New again each Spring are made.
But here I've stayed
As seasons changed,
Always rooted deep remained.

"I am rough because of all I have seen,
And all I have lost.
I have said goodbye
To many an autumn leaf,
Turned to brown and fallen away.
I have shed my magnificent shades
Time and time again,
And braved wildest winter wind,
With branches weighed down in white.

"Ask me how I became rough,
And I'll tell you it takes time.
It takes bleakest winters
And autumn change,
It takes sun-kissed summers
And rainy-day springs
To make me grow
And give me rings."

I looked at the tree,
So much older than me,
As my freckled fingers danced
Across its jagged wooden shield, so hard,
Yet I sat beneath
Sheltered in softest summer shade.

I suppose I would have liked to stay forever soft
To dwell in endless summer afternoons.
But time did pass,
And my flowers did fade.
Seasons danced
And danced away,
Spiraling into rings as I grew.

But though I'm harder now,
More guarded,
With skin no longer smooth,
Undamaged-
What the tree didn't tell me
Is that I'm so much taller now.
I can see things I could never see before,
During the days of pink lemonade
And shade.

It takes time,
And it takes pain.
It takes loss with gain.
But now I am the tallest of trees.

I may be rough,
But it's because I'm strong.
Softest grass will wither
And flowers fade,
But I will stand forever.

sometimes stars

Sometimes stars fall-
Light descending,
Glittering, bending,
Paints the sky,
And we make wishes.

And sometimes the moon goes dark-
Disappears from sight
In blackest night,
Turns ocean tides,
And we celebrate the eclipse.

And sometimes people fall,
And sometimes worlds go dark-
But like falling stars,
We could inspire,
Dreams igniting
Even in our falling.
Let's celebrate,
For a new tide is coming.

to touch the thunder

You wanted to touch the thunder,
To throw lightning from your hands
And gather the rain in your arms.
You wanted to extinguish
The roaring fire you felt inside,
So you created a thunderstorm
To roar even louder.

But did all your efforts turn your skies to blue?
Your pouring rain
Managed to mute the flame,
But it seems you have exchanged
Your smoky air for smoky skies,
Billowing clouds and ceaseless shade.

Yes, you wanted to touch the thunder
And you did.
You grabbed ahold and didn't let go,
Because thunder feels like a hunger,
An aching and quiet burning
Never satisfied.

Building, building
Into something electric,
Something malevolent.
You feed on the anger and it lashes out,
Lightning from your hands.
Is this how it feels to have control?

You gather the rain in your arms,
As it drops from your eyes.
It seems you have only traded fire for fire,
And you're still left with only ashes.
You wanted to touch the thunder,
And you became the storm.

a lily in your garden

How beautifully You have clothed the lilies
And all the fairest flowers of the field.
How wonderful that I never have to worry
With Your pow'r and gentle kindness as my shield.

Fine linen, bright and clean, for me to wear,
Clothed in the righteous acts of all the saints-
You've made me beautiful, I need not fear
For Your condemnation now has been replaced.

In Your great love You've washed me, made me pure,
What nothing in the world could e'er destroy.
My heart is glad, my body rests secure,
For in Your presence I find fullness of joy.

So grow me now and I will gladly be
A lily in Your garden, forgiv'n and free.


*inspired by Luke 12, Revelation 19, and Psalm 16

ode to an empty page

Oh empty page,

So beautifully blank,

I do not wish to defile you,

To desecrate your spiral-bound home

With my lowly songs and poems.

Dare I decorate your lines,

Perfectly spaced and robin's-egg blue,

With the simple scrawlings of my hand?

Stainless sheet of white,

I behold you and can think of no words

So perfect that they could improve you.

Your purity is peerless,

And your possibilities without end.

Who am I to take away from

Your infinite potential?

Oh empty page,

You are without flaw,

And I am unworthy to mark you.

But please accept the gift I bring-

I wish to give you a name.

This world is full of empty pages,

And though you are perfect,

You are not unequaled.

Perhaps it would be better

To be flawed and have an identity,

Than to be perfect and a copy,

Indistinguishable from any other page.

What use has endless possibility

If you were never to use it?

Oh empty page,

Let's become something

Together.

in every crescendo

In every crescendo
I see a flower blooming,
Bursting from it's seed
Into fullness of beauty-
For the first time
Knowing the light.

In every diminuendo
I see a poem ending-
Knowing the light
In fullness of beauty,
Then tucking it away
To treasure inside.

listen

Listen
To the falling snow,

Gently,
Silently,
Touching the ground.

Each snowflake
Intricate-
Perfectly designed,

Has crystallized
Somewhere in the clouds

And fallen
A million miles,

Simply to land
Here
At my feet.

At journey's end,
Still silence.

Now, hidden
In a drift,

Or melting
On the tongue
Of a rosy-faced child.

Soft
And pure,
And quiet.

Listen
If you can.

Listen and see,
How everything in the world
Is now hidden
In a blanket of white,

A gift
From the heavens above.
The whitest winter sky
So far has fallen.

Now,
Cover me-

Hide me
In your purity.

I have listened
For the sound
Of you,
And found you here,

A voice,
Still and small
And perfect,

In the falling snow.

this body of death

How I love to seek out the beauty
In ugly things.
To find the poem in things
I should pass over,
While passing over
What is truly beautiful.

But what light could I possibly find
In the darkness
Were it not You?
The stars?
But whose hands set them there?

Oh, how quickly I abandon You,
And trade Your glory
For ashes.
How good I've become at searching
While ignoring the answers
I already know.

You have made me
A beautiful white horse,
Pure and free,
Yet I insist on rolling in the mud
Like a pig,
Happily trapped in its pen.

I wallow in the world
When You have overcome the world.
I try to glorify brokenness
When You have come to heal.

How much better it would be
To love You with my whole heart,
When what You offer is so much greater-
Beauty unmarred.

Yet a part of me clings to these ashes,
Longs to rake through them again and again
And forget Your blazing fire
That brought me both warmth and light.

Now in the dark I am blind.
I tell myself it is better to be cold,
As my shaking body
Grows hungry and weak.

You invite me to Your table to feast,
But I am the pickiest of children,
And refuse to touch my plate,
Though I waste away.

Oh wretched man that I am!
I live and yet hate life,
Clinging to death and dust
And thinking it's good.

Because I desperately want to be good,
To find something beautiful
In my darkness,
Some star that I have set there.

How quickly I forget
Your glorious grace
And trade it away,
Extinguishing the flame
And seeking my own spark.

I end up rolling in the mud,
Rummaging in these ashes again.
Oh, who will deliver me
From this body of death?

Thanks be to God,
In Christ Jesus our Lord.

I am the Israelite,
Wandering through the desert
And forgetting You at every turn,
Though I've seen You part the seas,
And more miraculous deeds
Than I could ever recount.

As soon as You give me Your law,
And I am in awe of Your holiness,
You find me worshiping a golden calf.
How quickly we stray,
And follow the sin in our hearts.

Yet You have called us Your people,
And I, Your child.
You have loved us
Even in our unfaithfulness,
We who are prone to wander.

Lord, only You could save
Our twisted hearts,
Bent and broken
And in need of You.

You have set us upon a rock,
Your steady unchanging grace,
And nothing can separate us
From Your everlasting love,
Not even ourselves.

Though we are foolish and we run,
You are the Father
Who loves the prodigal son.

the old poet

The old poet,
With his long, gray beard
And pale, gaunt face,
Squinted through the candlelight
That illuminated his desk.

How long he had been sitting there,
He could not remember.
The fragrances of wood and melting wax,
Paper and fresh ink,
Lingered in the damp room.

In this place he had carefully crafted
Sentence and stanza,
Masterfully guiding each word into place
By the light of a single flame.

He would not eat,
He would not sleep.
He only sat there in his chair,
A ghostly figure,
Beckoning poems from the shadows.

Some said he was a madman,
A mad scientist with words.
Trading demons for dictionaries,
He broke down the universe into letters
And tried to stitch it back together
In a sentence that could somehow explain
The things that haunted him.

In that desolate space
He strung together letters
Like stars across the sky,
New combinations constellations
That he drew from the night.

In the solitude of his cellar
He was a god,
Holding the power to shape his world
In the grip of his hand,
The tip of his pen.

Drunk from the power
That is mightier than the sword,
He remained there.
Day after day,
Searching, still searching-
The old, lonely poet.

soliloquy

You are the audience,
And I am a soliloquy.
Breaking through the silence,
Yet no one else can hear me.

Though I'm surrounded on every side,
My heart is shared only with You-
The God who hears my cry,
Who shapes my acting into truth.

the melting snow

Spring awoke,
Little by little-
With the shedding of winter coats,
Autumn jackets,
Chilly-night sweaters,
And all the layers of my doubt.

And the melting snow told me
That all the things that weigh me down,
No matter how high
They might pile,
Will one day dissolve
Into mere memories.

The cold doesn't last forever.

shadows

I'm shooting with a shallow depth of field.
Adjust my focus,
Hoping, hopeless-
To show you how I feel.

Distractions from all I try to reveal,
Negative space
Does not erase
The chaos it conceals.

If only one could photograph the heart.
Exposure high,
Exposing my
Impenetrable dark.

Aperture wide and flash of brightest light
Would capture my fears,
And blackest years,
And bring them all in sight.

Yes, if only picture frames could hold a soul.
I'd show you me,
And then you'd see
The shadows make me whole.