Giggles and crayons melted
the distance between our sorrow.
Sketched out souls, framed together
in a mosaic moment of
play.
I miss him echoed
in our quiet parallel
expressions of color.
Each grieving, uniquely
united by the unquiet outline
of our circumstances.
Burning in the coldest soul
is a pilot light fueled by the breath
of God.
Amidst the darkness of hovering grief, cold
reality collides with warm consciousness,
like atoms birthing a new creation in the deep.
May I sit awhile and warm my soul in your eyes? Eyes
crackling and popping with stories stirred by
my need for hope. Hope boasting
of losses gained and tragic victories;
Of dreams, love and faith.
Faith refusing to be dampened by despair, quiet
constant discipline battling the reality of death.
Death is in your eyes. Eyes raised from
grave circumstances. Circumstances
are snuffing out my flame! Flame now fanned
by the passionate compassion of your hope. Hope
fueling my soul with logs of endurance, sparking
life in my dimmed eyes. Eyes that others ask to sit awhile
and warm their cold souls with the fire of my hope.
Who is this God cutting covenant with me?
Walking the gauntlet of redemption
while I deeply slumber with doubt?
Who is this voice that plucks
me from polytheism. Patiently revealing
that he alone is my God?
I am the last picked.
Ripe with barrenness
No heirs
No further God
But my Lord is not impotent.
He
always has the
last impossible pregnant laugh.
I attempt to stuff your love
into boundaries of understanding.
Horror and pleasure
of an all knowing, powerful God
relating to man.
You are no idol carved by
my own hands.
Surely
I repulse your holiness.
Hiding my nakedness behind the lushness
of creation, fearing your
righteousness.
You call,
“Walk with me!”
Infinity fitting into finite
Inviting belief–love
so vast choosing to fit
into a heart
grounded by the gravity
of sin.
Didn’t know I was talking to suicide,
goodbye was not on my lips.
“See you this afternoon”
promised more time.
Silence
breathed on the line between us
Like a to-be-continued story
never completed . . .
You hung
up while I still wait for
the afternoon to come.
Proverbs 3:…4I was crying to the LORD with my voice, And He answered me from His holy mountain. Selah. 5I lay down and slept; I awoke, for the LORD sustains me.
Night defiantly whispers,
“No rest here. “Â And sleep
steals the covers,
tauntingly tapping tic-tock
on your brain.
Scripture is like a father’s
bedtime story to his child,
like a mother’s lullaby.
Remembered promises,
experienced and witnessed, repeat hope
in the cell of circumstances,
fluff pillows and prepare the heart
to receive just enough.
God tucks the soul
beneath the blanket of his wings
and feeds truth and comfort, though
our fallen bodies fail us.
Caught a glimpse of you today
mirrored in another
standing in your
shoes, your smock,
your hat,
ready to
serve me
My son introduced
you to my pain
building kinship
to his brother hanging
on the wall.
fringe familiarity
blinked back at me
“IÂ shared a bus.”
You acknowledged
Grief heaved
a heavy sigh of
silence between us.
How are you?
Questioning the
son I can longer ask
Willing another still
breathing to
value each breath
Embracing Photos
After reading a fellow poet’s haunting work I prepared a response to the darkness that lights her world, and once lit my own.
I have lived in darkness,
wrapped up in the blanket of its truth, smothered
hope and shut out liars
who offer to light my way with burnt
out candles of philosophy. I thought that I had insulated
myself from darkness by embracing its truth. Nothing begets nothing–
we’re all dead anyway.
Until
fear mastered my taste buds, and my
craving was bitterness.
I begged death to
swallow me whole and it did.
Soul crushing pain that I could
never quite medicate out of existence.
Death was my hope.
But there was a persistent, pesky light
that didn’t care if I trusted. The warmth of its glow stayed constant
when others faded away. Like an inn at the end of a long
journey, it offered rest from
my aching confusion.
The lantern brought me from the woods
of my tangled shadows.
Secure in its source,
in its never changing nature
a humble truth never experienced in my boasting
darkness of doubt. It didn’t demand I believe, nor
did it exact the price of darkness. It paid in full every
debt I owed. This light didn’t scramble as I did,
to snuff out pain. It bore it. . . .willingly.
It hung in the darkness for me.
I have never experienced such light.
A state of being, rather than doing, a love
that pursues
Rather than playing hide-and-seek.
My soul caught fire as I warmed by the fire
of its glory,
I am a light to you in the darkness
Inviting warmth and freedom to the darkest souls.
If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call the National Suicide Lifeline at 988 or go to the website at https://988lifeline.org/