Legacy

Once, you made a promise to a lonely man. 

You took him out into the twilight, 

And lifted his eyes to the swirling crush of galaxies. 

“Your children will outnumber the stars.”

His gaze swept the heavens-

Multitude pinpricks of light-

Until his eyes were filled with starlight and grateful tears. 

I stand beneath that same darkened sky, 

But the stars aren’t so visible anymore,

Overcome by lights of our own design. 

The promise is dim. 

One star burns above, alone, 

And I wonder if this might be 

My legacy. 

The Symphonies of Heaven

Moonlight pools in the furrowed fields. 

Each grain-topped stalk reaches up

To caress the dark sky’s face.

A hush has fallen over our common earth,

But the heavens are alive with song.

The stars pour forth melodies, harmonies,

Endless arias, spiraling refrains.

Their silver voices sing clear in the night.

Who but God has ears to listen?

Who but God and his legions of angels?

If we could hear but one chord of that song,

We would never again doubt the beauty of existence

Or the perfection of eternity to come,

Wrapped in the symphonies of heaven. 

NPM: Call Me Mara

Do not call me Naomi. 

I am no longer pleasant.

I’m Mara, I’m bitter, I’m empty.

I was filled, but I’ve been hollowed out.

I’ve lost the sweetness of the rose.

I’ve lost the flavor of food.

I’ve lost my love and my legacy.

I’ve lost my faith and my trust.

Do not call me by my old name-

The name that, when on his lips, 

Meant promise and future and passion.

It is a bitter reminder of who I was, 

Who he was,

Who we were. 

Naomi died with Elimelek, Mahlon, and Kilion.

Call me bitter. Call me Mara. 

NPM: Stain to White

Evil must be stronger than good 

Why else can one drop of poison

Turn the whole well?

One cruel person

Shatter countless lives?

Why is it so easy to break,

Yet so difficult to mend?

Surely evil is stronger

Or is it that

The difficulty

The impossibility

Of turning dark to light

Deepest stain to white

Is the monumental task of a God

Who we would not know we need

If we could do it ourselves so easily

Still Searching

In knowing him
My heart is satisfied
My soul is justified
There is nothing more I need
And still I’m searching for something
If I really knew him
I would know peace
Would know content
But all I see of him
is a blurry silhouette

Every glimpse I’ve had of him
stirs my heart
But glimpses aren’t enough
to sustain deep, abiding love
I need to stare, to watch,
to study long and hard
this one whose beauty
captivates and mesmerizes
if only looked at truly

NPM: Through the Fire

As wax held in the fire’s heat
Let holiness and my heart meet
For in that purifying flame
My heart will never be the same
It will grow warm and soft and tame
To take the imprint of Your Name
Let me be tempered in this blaze
And make me pleasing to your gaze
For everything that I desire
Is gained by passing through the fire

Suffice

“God is love,”

the Scriptures say.

But “God is spirit”

and his body is not present with me,

only his intangible soul.

I cannot touch or hear or see

and he says I am blessed for believing anyway.

But I long for the animal comfort

of a heartbeat beneath my ear,

an arm around my shoulder, holding me up.

Or to hear affirmations, declarations of faithfulness,

whispered, murmured, spoken aloud.

Not just pages of red letters,

not just tears blurring an empty ceiling,

not just crying out with no reply.

The glass is dim, the mirror dark,

and all I have is a promise,

not yet attained.

I cannot touch or hear or see

but this present distance must suffice for me.

A Holy Moment

I lay in the hammock,

Limbs heavy and sluggish in the

Cloying heat,

And it is a holy moment.

The slow summer breeze

Carries pollen as incense.

Above me rises the blue dome of this cathedral.

Solid oak branches form

Criss-crossing arches,

And in their upper reaches,

Angels perch and sing like swallows.

Amid their chorus,

I hear the low whisper,

Soft and gentle and desperately dear:

The reason for the vault of sky,

The angels’ piping strains,

The incense of the flowers and trees.

His whisper, his voice,

So quiet you could miss it.

So small you could mistake it,

And think instead that

He was in the wind, the earthquake, the fire.

Know Thyself

“Know thyself,” the Ancients said
as if it could be done
I lie here in a stranger’s bed
and dream within a stranger’s head
The battle’s just begun

And as I dream, it seems to me
It would be just as well
To know the bottom of the sea
Know all of every mystery,
Heaven’s heights, the depths of Hell

I look into the mirror’s glass
And see a stranger’s eyes
Where doubts and dreams and shadows pass
Too swift to count, too full, too fast
Each blazes as it dies

Impossible to know my way
When I change constantly
Her mouth speaks words I’d never say
Her heart is quick to go astray
She is so strange to me

A Broken Gate, A Stolen Key

Hell, you once had the power
To make your home in each of us
To smolder in the pits of our souls
And make us wretched

Hell, you once grew like a flower
Roots tangled through our thoughts
Poisonous blossoms making our air
Thick with sulfuric fumes

Hell, you once stood like a tower
Proud and vicious against our skies
Looming over us, a constant threat
Keeping us in terror and tyranny

Hell, your power is broken
Your flower withered
Your tower shattered

You’ve been plundered, ransacked,
Emptied by the one
Who went willingly through your gates
And obliterated them as he came back out

[1 Corinthians 15; Revelation 1:18]