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. 

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.

NPWM Day 5: The Architect’s Daughter

The architect’s daughter

sees potential in everything,

envisions a future

of possibilities and promises.

She tears down walls

and reshapes space

and ushers in light through new windows.

She pulls together the unexpected,

the unprecedented,

and a plan takes shape beneath her hands.

She sees results before they’re realized.

She holds the vision in her mind

until everyone else is able to see it too.

The architect’s daughter

overflows with potential,

but she keeps no promises for herself.

Possibilities too painful to imagine

are locked away and laid to rest.

There are some walls she can’t tear down,

some windowless spaces

that cannot be bathed with light.

I am no architect, no visionary,

but even I can see

that she is the dream being realized,

the potential actualized,

the renovation,

the renaissance,

the rebirth,

and I hold the vision in my mind

until she is able to see it too.