come

Let the little children come to me.
Let the little children shout and sing
to bring joy to their King.
Let the little children sit quietly
at His feet and listen.

To them belong the kingdom-
those I've woven in the womb
and called by name.
Those who hear my voice
and follow me-
my precious little lambs.

I am their Good Shepherd,
and I know them thoroughly.
I listen to them pray,
and I hear each Spirit-groaning.
I know how they will stray,
and there's no distance
I will not cover
to bring them back safe.

I will bring you back safe.

Nothing can snatch you
from my hands.
I have engraved you there
upon my palms.

Oh little child, look,
look at my hands.
See my scars
and doubt no more
that you can be saved.
Take my hand-
believe.
Open up the gift of faith
I give to you in love.

Come,
like a little child come unto me.
Come with all your sin
and be made clean.
Cast all of your anxiety
on the One who cares for you.
Bring all of your burdens
and believe I care for you.

bed of swords

Alive and active
is God's word-
sharper than any
double-edged sword.

I pull out the weapon
when the battle seems hopeless
from where it's hidden in my heart-
the sword of the Spirit.

Yes, tonight I will sleep
on a whole bed of swords,
and rest in peace
within God's wonderful words.



"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39

torn

How do I let go
of my need for control?
How do I accept
that your actions
and your feelings
are not always my fault?
How can I forgive myself
for things that you have done?
I listen to the accuser's voice
and struggle to hang up the phone.
Broken, ugly, dirty, guilty,
never good enough-
undeserving of your pity,
your unrelenting love.
My mind is a prison tonight,
but I do not try to escape
or ask anyone else to help-
this is my rightful place.
How can I
make sense of grace
or comprehend
the pain in your face
when you see my scars?
I didn't mean
to break your heart.
I was only trying
to fix everything,
and in the process
I tore myself apart.

children singing

In heaven will we all be children singing,

unable to contain our joy or keep from dancing?

Will we gather around the throne of Jesus,

the little lost lambs He carried home with great rejoicing?

Will He welcome us in His arms

and look with love on His creation?

Will He answer our silly questions

with fatherly patience?

Will we miss the womb we came from

and the comforts of human love?

Will we remember them when eclipsed

by the far greater joys that await us?

Joys impossible to imagine,

like dazzling colors we've never seen-

Will we join into a painting,

a palette completely untouched by pain?

Each tear wiped tenderly away,

all thorns from flesh removed.

Will perfect love cast out all fear,

and every storm subdue?

Then on this stormy earth, shall we not bow

and trust the Artist's brush?

Weak and wounded sinners,

bent and broken by the curse?

As we groaning, wait and long

for Christ to come back for His bride,

we surround ourselves with children

to stay close to Jesus' side.

the bruise on my arm

The bruise on my arm
changes colors like a kaleidoscope.
Blue, then purple, then green,
my stained-glass skin.

I don't know how I got the toy-
perhaps it was a prize at a fair
or a clumsy bump
into a chair.

Maybe I am just a big fish
who has gone and swallowed too much ocean.
Maybe one night in a storm
I unknowingly scooped up a Jonah

who now sits just beneath my skin
and cries out to God to listen.
Over time the colors fade
and the voice grows dim.

The body heals itself with time,
for it was created quite clever,
but the soul cannot,
so I pray for the prophet's escape
from the bloody chamber.

madame librarian

The Friendship Series
Installment 8: Mom


laura lou,
on the mountain where he proposed to you
saying "marry me, or I'll drive off this cliff!"
did it ever cross your mind
that you could end up doing both?

the mirrors of heaven

The Friendship Series
Installment 7: Gladys



Grandpapa's spectacles cannot be found
He has searched all the rooms,
high and low, 'round and 'round.

I mastered this poem to recite in fourth grade-
the humorous tale
of an old man's mistake.

He gathered his grandchildren to scour the whole house,
unaware of the object
that perched on his nose.

Finally the youngest
looked up, smiled, and said:
There are the glasses, on Grandpapa’s head!

Now my grandmother's memories cannot be found.
We have searched all the rooms,
high and low, 'round and 'round.

I think of the poem and want to be the grandchild to shout
There they are, in your head!
and watch her shake them out.

But I'm met with a blank stare when I walk in the room,
and she asks me
if I've ever met my mom.

So turning over the house, the chambers of her mind,
we pick up the pieces
her life left behind.

Memories misplaced, our true selves temporarily hidden
until that glad day
when we look in the mirrors of heaven.

summer camp

The Friendship Series
Installment 5: (I don't remember her name)


Once a girl told me my name couldn't possibly be Sarah
because I wasn't blonde.
Do princesses only come in one color?
I asked myself and frowned.

Meeting your expectations
was like trying to spread cold butter on a piece of toast.
I later found crumbs of myself
all over the floor from the attempt.

In reality I've found it's difficult
to cut yourself with a butter knife.
I've since disassembled a lot of razors,
but that's beside the point.

When I worked retail in an amusement park,
some customers remarked ironically
"You're the happiest employee we've seen all day"
while I was thinking of ways to die.

Since birth it seems,
people have constantly told me just how happy I am,
commenting on my "contagious" smile
til I considered it a germ.

At summer camp, that girl who said
my parent's named me wrong
asked me how I was so happy all the time-
I probably grinned and shrugged.

She didn't see the tears
that had been streaming down my face
the whole time we'd been talking,
and that's probably what hurt the most.

I don't fault her though-
it was midnight when we walked back to the cabin.
For all she knew, I could have been blonde
in that early lack of lighting-

Could have actually deserved my name,
if someone would just stop to listen!
I might let him see me in the sun-
leave the butter out to soften.

motifs

The Friendship Series
Installment 4: Ben and Katie


I open up your rare, eclectic newsletter
and smile knowingly at a few of the photos.
I think I almost understand
the poem scribbled at the bottom.

I do not really know you,
but I know someone better than most
who knows you better than the heavenly host
and tells me everything.
And I think that must count
for something.

My best friend's core creed
is "to know and be known,"
even when the knowing
mostly happens over the phone.

In your endless "situation,"
certain items are motifs-
things like sunflowers and graveyards
and terrible timing.

In high school, I had a friend
with this obsessive need to be different.
We didn't talk that much in school,
but loads online, where it was safe to be real.
He grew up as a missionary kid in Turkey
where everything about him equaled anomaly.

Imagine the shock
when his family moved back to the States,
and suddenly he was just like everyone else.
Upon realizing he wasn't inherently extraordinary,
he dedicated himself to all kinds of obscurity,
distinguishing himself by his "eclecticity."

I don't think you have that same kind of need,
but I'm not sure what to make out of all your motifs.

Anyways, those are just the musings
of a mutual friend,
not the Someone
dedicated to total omniscience.

To Her, there's no such thing as
"more-than-a-friend."
How could there be,
when a friend's the highest good?

To sail away
on a great ship of motifs
and to take on the world
is the dream of a Peach.

the other side of the world

The Friendship Series
Installment 3: Courtney


Your house was different from mine.
There was more fighting,
but the casual kind-
the consequence of seven girls
vying for space,
to find themselves unique
in a crowded place.

The kind of fighting
that comes from closeness
was one I didn't know yet,
and even though it alarmed me,
I enjoyed it.

You were blonde with sharp blue eyes,
darker than mine, the cautious kind-
stained by grief
or something else divine.

I wouldn't be surprised to see you
in some subculture in heaven.
Before you went to Korea,
I swear you were already Korean.

Your piano-hands were angrier than mine,
pressing on the keys
like they were mines.
And if you dug down deep,
you'd find the gold
that'd buy you your escape
from the past's grip hold.

Is that what you found
on the other side of the world?

the giver

The poet is a collector
of people, places, words, and thoughts,
the ultimate introspector
connecting inward dots.

May I also be a giver,
sharing each soul-season as a blessing.
a fearless life-liver
overflowing with expression.

the three musketeers

The Friendship Series
Installment 2: Hannah and Jack


Paddling down Main Street in a canoe,

how far do you have to go before I forget you?

How many pancakes will it take

to cover the doghouse, to quiet the ache?

The answer is never logical-

something about how ice cream has no bones.

You paddled your way down to Georgia,

and I never forgot the joke.

I hope you still play the french horn,

and have all the ribbons we won

from counting long hours of practicing-

a different color for each crucial sum.

The ribbons on my flute case

were purple, yellow, and lacy green.

The purple was frayed at the edges

that I played with and stroked pridefully.

Before you moved to Georgia,

the summer after the sixth grade,

the three of us: you, me, and the Boy,

were three musketeers on parade.

A tree stump served as our secret computer,

as we searched for the lady in red:

the master thief Carmen San Diego-

oh, the fantastical adventures we had!

My parents asked why I didn't have more friends.

Why not Maggie, or Kristen, or Kate?

But I liked the little world we had,

and didn't fit in with those girls anyway.

When you left, the Boy and I

grew at the same time closer and farther apart.

It was common knowledge he loved me,

though he'd never spoken it.

He was like an old piece of furniture

that pleasantly haunts a room,

the kind you like because it's always been there,

but that's easy to overlook.

When I made friends with misfit, lip-gloss girls,
I missed your chicken laugh.
But most of all I missed the three of us
when friendship was all that we had.

my first best friend

The Friendship Series
Installment 1: Lizzie


My first best friend
had brown boricua skin
and wide black eyes.
She taught me many things,
like how to do makeup
and tell lies.
She showed me how
to press heat to my wavy hair
and make it obey.
She touched me hungrily,
like she was begging me
to stay.

My first best friend
told me to join the soccer team
so I’d lose weight.
I did all that and more,
listening to her
call herself ugly and fat.
She was skinnier than I was,
prettier too,
and deeply defiant.
According to our moms,
I was supposed to be
"the good influence."

When she showed up at school
with cuts on her arms,
I didn't know what to do.
Later on that week,
I offered it up in prayer
in my small group.
The leader told my youth pastor,
who gave me a week to tell her mom,
or else he would.
I felt so trapped,
forced to break
my best friend's trust.

He told me
if something happened to her,
I'd always blame myself,
if I knew what she was doing
and never got her any help.
I don't know if it really helped
when her parents unhinged
her bedroom door.
But how could I know anything?
I wasn't even ten and four.

Later on,
when I started to self-harm,
I didn't dare tell anyone,
except for kids who also did,
and I knew more than one.
Six years later,
when I finally told my mom,
she said she knew,
then repeated the tired adage:
"if your friends jumped off a cliff,
would you?"

My first best friend
jumped off a cliff of sorts
our junior year.
She ran away from home,
and my parents didn't want me
to see her.
They said it might be dangerous-
she was doubtless doing drugs.
At home it was the cause
of many teary arguments.

I started off my senior year
without a friend in sight.
I cried alone in my room
or in the shower
a lot of nights.
We don't talk anymore,
but on Facebook I scroll
through pictures of her son.
She was a fiercely loyal friend,
and I know now
she's a good mom.

the poem-world

When they ask where I am,
tell them I've gone.
Gone to the poem-world,
the roam-world,
far-from-the-known-world.

When they ask what I'm doing,
sing them a song.
A song from the poem-world,
the gloom-world,
full-moon-world.

When they ask when I'll be home,
tell them I may be long.
Just one more journey through the poem-world,
the alone-world,
plans-postponed-world.

When they tear me from the clouds,
let them have their way.
I'll return from the poem-world
with something to say!

coneflowers

Pink coneflowers
will always remind me
of the little curved sidewalk
that led to the front door of our old house.
I remember how they trembled there
with the giant, round bodies of bumblebees
hovering all around,
their faces smooth and black
as a new moon.

The coneflowers,
growing tall and bright and deliberate,
were landing pads inviting pollination-
urchins plucked from the sea,
then promptly taught ballet and put in costume.
I was always afraid to walk past them-
would linger at a distance,
staring at the black and yellow guests
before a mad dash
into the laundry room.

I liked the flowers themselves,
and still think of them with fondness-
wish to stand again
on that little sidewalk.
If I went back, I would still run-
not for fear, but for longing
to look again on each room,
like we ran through the hall
the day we first moved in.
It was a very big house, and I got lost,
swallowed by the newness-
refusing to swallow anything new myself
and succumb to acceptance.

In spite of myself,
I grew up there-
every day rapidly passing
the pink coneflowers
on my way down the hill to the school bus.
Plucked from the sea,
I taught myself to breathe,
learned to dance before an audience
and let outsiders in.
Even those fearsome fuzzy bees,
I now remember
like old friends.

the imperial moth

As you sat under the stars a yellow gift fell from above,
a moth as big as my hand in the hand of my love.
His furry head nodded, then shook with fright.
His heavy wings drooped in the purple night.

You met his foreign face with sympathy
when you saw the moth-wing stung with injury.
Spotted bold and brown, a beauty brought low to the ground,
you marveled at the strange new life you’d found.

As you sat under the stars in a faraway land,
I felt that look in your face, a hand in my hand.

subaquatic fantasy

I slip beneath the water's shining surface
with eyes wide open
and behold a quiet new world,
a blue-painted heaven.
I speechless breathe out bubbles
and watch the pearls of my lungs
dash toward the clouds
in an upward avalanche of rubble.

Everything else moves slower here,
a peaceful place more dense than air.
Sounds are muffled and strange,
somewhere between liquid and frozen,
as the sunny, bustling world above
blends into a blue oblivion.

I wish I were part fish,
so I could lounge at the bottom for hours.
I imagine a tea party underwater.
All my friends are there
with tiny cups and plates and cakes
and not a single worry or care.

But then my wriggling toes remind me
I am all-human and no fin.
Two urgent lungs tug me back to the top
(again and again and again)
I keep on fighting with my flesh,
dipping my lonely face
into the pool palace.

I am its blue princess,
unblinking ascending a spiral staircase,
building in my mind a chlorine castle
where I can dwell,
without a single worry or wall.

All my friends are there
with the same pearly breath,
a whole colony of oysters
flirting with death.
I may have imagined them up too,
but what does it matter
when everything is blue?

sing along

listen, listen for my heart,
that beating blood-tunnel
that never knows when to stop.
you will not find it here at home.
you will but glimpse it in the poem.
to hear it, that’s another matter-
come rest your head upon my shoulder.
listen to that lively bicycle pump,
that guitar you confidently strum.
listen like it matters
that I’m still filled with oxygen.
listen close to learn the tune
so you can sing along.

paper straw

my heart’s a paper straw,
meant to drink
from just one cup.
you travel through me
sweet and cold.
i become soft
and start to fold.
when the drink is gone,
i find myself undone.
my heart,
biodegradable,
discarded,
dissolves unnoticed
into the earthgarden.

the leech

I dip my hand into the muddy green river
and take a swim in murky, moving water,
cool and buzzing with excitement
like a secret on the lips of the land.

My feet tread carefully through stony sludge
and hold me fast against the river's rush,
then unaware are spotted by a stealthy slimy leech
greedy for my blood, swift to attach.

When i find him later, suctioned to my toe,
I freeze in fascination like a doe
who, spying the deadly hunter, does not run
as if struck stone by fear or sudden love.

You peel him from my penetrated skin,
painted with dirt and blood, flowing and thin.
You chase the hunter deep into the forest,
and help me clean the wound as if I were precious.

caffeine

The poem is caffeine,
a morning cup of coffee
to keep me sane.
I plug myself in
to its easy energy,
a tiny flame.

Steam dances silent
in the air.
Thoughts trip and tumble
everywhere-
stumble into speaking shape
as paper jaws lean in to taste.

I take a sip and wonder
where the magic beans
were grown.
i ponder the peculiar place
where ideas come from.

Now the poem is caffeine
I drank too late.
It keeps me up far into the night
and beckons me to write.
I let the embers glow
until I’ve seen the solid poem
and the trance finally fades,
a tired ghost.

astronaut

All the world's a stage to the actor, I hear,
but to the astronaut, all the universe is a mirror.
I search for myself in the sun and the stars-
I read the sky like my own private memoir.

And when I take flight to the moon up above,
I search for myself in the earth that I loved,
small now and swaddled in clouds like a child,
suspended in darkness that goes on for miles.

My astronaut heart swallows all in its sight.
I inhale the dark and I exhale the light.
Hungrily straining to swallow it all,
I strive to escape from the stage of my soul.

pitahaya

Yellow cousin of the dragon fruit,
a softer fire within your throat.
You are a thorny treasure chest,
a sweetness strikingly suppressed.

Your fruit is white with tiny seeds,
a crystal chain of raven beads.
An incandescent eagerness,
a flaming tongue to curse or bless.

Yellow friend of mine, oh cherished jewel,
tell me plainly if I'm a fool.
Give me a taste of your truthful nectar,
a key to the chest where I hide my temper.

fish in the sea

Do I swim up to the dangling hook,
to the tree that gives knowledge
of both evil and good?
Do I long for a taste of the glittering bait,
for the serpent to tell me it's alright?

When you pull me out of the water,
do I lay limp in your hands,
obedient to your hungry demands?
Or do I gasp for liquid breath
and make a slippery escape from death?

Do I secretly hope I would make a good meal-
rather perish than live
and not know how it feels?
There are plenty of other fish in the sea.
I muse to myself, "then why not me?"

fallingwater

I step into a house
and I do not step into a house.
Everything leads me out,
out, to the trees!
To the meadow flowering!
The breeze breathes
in a room that is living.

I walk across a waterfall,
touching the water
and not touching the water.
I sleep with windows open,
my dreams spread wide
and flying.

The night is still
and not still,
swelling with life
and breath and sleep.
I wake with no curtains
when the sun glows pink
and perfect.

Let me be a house like this,
yes, like this-
a house that is less a house
than a gallery of grace.
Let the doors of my heart
stand open, open, open!
Tell the trees to come in-
tell the waters and winds!

May I not live trapped
inside a world of my invention,
but ever stay close to Your heart
in the castle of creation.

jealous

Jealous for your gaze,
for the sparkle of your voice.
I want to be the eye
of your hurricane hypnosis,
the single object
of your steady focus.

Jealous for your presence,
for the comfort of your touch.
I want to be the book
you can't put down,
not the one you force yourself
to focus on.

Jealous for your thoughts,
for a home inside your head.
I want to be the alarm
that gets you out of bed-
the only happy dream
you dream awake.

snow globe (part four)

There was once a little snow globe
hidden in a happy home
where a girl shivered in silence-
in her world of ice alone.

She, curious, peered through the glass
til breath obscured her sight,
and then drew pictures in the fog
as if her hands were light.

She reached for a warm world beyond
she saw but couldn't feel-
a picture perfect family
that never quite felt real.

Oh little girl, come out of there-
abandon your designs
and feel the true sun on your skin-
leave bitterness behind!

You who know love, now freely give
to family, friend and foe,
and do not love’s return demand
unless you would grow cold.

the song i want to listen to

The song I want to listen to
comes easily to mind-
a craving cheap to satisfy,
a catchy tune that rhymes.

The song I want to listen to,
I work hard to memorize-
each subtle sound and turn of phrase
a poet's paradise.

The song I want to listen to
sits with me when I'm low-
sings back my pain in a refrain
and rides the waves of woe.

The song I want to listen to
can lift my spirits high,
color me pink and bubbly-
a floating butterfly.

The song I want to listen to
is everything at once-
a friend for when I'm lonely
and a pal for having fun.

The song I want to listen to
I still have yet to find,
so in this silence that I feel
all I can do is write.

translation

Half-asleep, up to my knees,
I wade in a vast ocean of dreams-
dripping, distant, flickering fragments
of memory fused with meaning.

Then half-awake, in dim lamplight
I look into the mirror, terrified.
The frozen face inside does not thaw,
and I can't remember what she looked like
before the nightmare magnified the flaw.

Half myself, half influence,
I am still that small child at the beach.
Salt clings to my skin
like the hope of a salvation.
I claw my way into the temple
in search of a translation.

nebula

I search your eyes for softness,
and swim in black pools, blinking into focus.
Sometimes I can see my own reflection
in the pool, safely guarded
in a picture frame of green and gold.
In winter he puts on a coat of dust,
and the nebula begins to collapse.
Something suddenly is born-
I search and find a star
inside the storm.

love is

love is a hand in my hand.
love is a cymbal in a marching band.
sweetly colliding or simply abiding,
and pulling me up from the ground.

love, please don't ever let go.
keep on surprising my heart in the snow.
sweetly enduring or simply enchanting,
as somber and sunny as blue.

mustard seed

Let me enter into your kingdom
as a tender child would come,
leaning on your loving promise:
"Little ones to him belong."

Grant me humble faith to follow-
bid me not away from thee.
Help me give up all I have
Til all I have's a mustard seed.

the rich man

It was the righteous rich man
who sadly went away-
a camel who could not shrink himself
to travel through the eye.

All that saw despaired and questioned:
"Who then can be saved?"
What is impossible with men
is only possible with God!

Another rich man in a tree
Jesus bid come down-
He called the sinner by his name,
and dwelt within his house.

For Jesus came to seek and save
the broken and the lost.
The rich man passes the needle's grave
through the doorway of the cross!

the switch

I turn off the faucet of my emotion
and wait for the slippery dish of my soul to dry
before setting it in place
on a shelf or a page.

I flip off the switch of my feeling
and wait for the dark to fall down from the ceiling
that I may paint you the picture
I see without seeing.

reflection

In my many travels,
I have often sat down at the tables
of great families of mountains,
hosts that brought me in
and taught me treasured lessons.

First, a grandmother painted white,
who in summertime began to melt-
put on a dress of pounding waterfalls
that flowed down past her featherweight footfall.
I wish to be as generous as she-
holding nothing back from the world,
my family.

Next, her son, a father standing tall.
At first I did not see him,
or hear his quiet call.
I traveled fearful in the night,
oblivious in the low light
to his kind presence overhead,
a helmet to protect my head.
I wish to serve as silent and as steadfast
as I found him the next morning,
making breakfast.

And then I met his wife
in a wreath of clouds,
cradling in the mist
a sleeping child.
Softly tending to his cry,
her lungs swelled with a lullaby
that delicate, danced on the wind
and lightly floating, filled my mind.
I wish to give as selflessly as she,
to water with my love
another's dreams.

Later on, I met that child,
a playful peak
poking at his sister, sky,
with sprightly technique.
He had his grandmother's snowy grace,
his towering father's stony face,
and his mother's wild imagination,
though not quite yet their elevation.
We climbed through rocks, sank into snow,
and made a slide out of the slope.
I wish to reflect as unmistakably as he
the image of the One
who created me.

-

"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made."
Psalm 139:14

buoy

The water rippled green
under my boat.
I floated free,
unanchored to one spot.

Then spied a little buoy,
red and white-
a ghost upon the lake
of my delight.

A marker with a message
from the shore:
“Turn back, fair traveler-
don’t float too far!”

I glanced back at the land
but did not stop-
sailed deeper still
into the sea of thought.

gethsemane

Nostalgia opens slowly,
like a flower.
Its fragrance stirs the senses
to search for the sower.
The flower bends low to the ground,
listening for a hint- a sound
locked inside its source,
where someone put down roots before.

Precious Savior, little child
in a lowly manger laid.
You blossomed a man-
roots trailing down from heaven.
When you returned to your high home,
did you ever feel that human pull
to kiss the ground where you once walked?
To love that world which loved you not?

In the same way my heart returns
to its old home-
loves that lonesome place
where it was born.
Lord, when I wake up in your mansion
may I, blooming, bow down in the garden?
Stretch myself once more to see
my own, my old Gethsemane?