Poetry

Easter Tide

(won an honorable mention from the
Utmost Christian Writers Poetry Contest)

I dreamed there was a wind in me,
a current of sky in my own lung,
and I was breathing urgently
a passion that ached to be sung.

The air surged in between my ribs
and drenched me with a tidal bath,
then shot out hot from in my chest–
bright fire lit up my wind-wet breath.

New words curled up around my tongue
to tell the wildly Wordful story
and made new shapes between my lips,
singing glory, glory, glory.

 

***

Amplify (inspired by Psalm 4)
for accompaniment with amplified instruments

Speak softness when I make an ugly noise.
Make room for me, my own right God! Make space.
Like yesterday, when I could hear your voice.

How long, my friends, can you ignore my face?
How long can you still cuddle up with lies?
How long can you twist beauty into waste?

He sees the painful swelling of my eyes.
This Lord who holds his people to his heart,
my God can hear the color of my cries.

Sit still beside your pillow in the dark,
And shiver, wordless, while God cools the pain
of angry sins that He has teased apart.

Wrap up a present inside something clean.
To lift a gift up toward His shining face,
against your God’s own back you’ll have to lean.

All desperate for the brightness of your blaze
We’re always asking, “Where can we get more?”
So amplify, great God. Turn up the shine!
Make light more bright than light has been before!

A joy so plump, so juicy on its vine,
a happiness enlarged: tall, wide and deep,
a lavish banquet with the sweetest wine.

A bigger bed, where I don’t have to weep,
Where safely I can close my eyes and sleep.

 

***

Necks in the Sand (inspired by Psalm 2)

Why do they stew in their own spleen
in a bath that boils but does not clean?

These earthy kings lump clay on clod,
Cushion themselves with clumps of sod.
A mud-pie of nations, their crude device,
Against our God and against his Christ:

“Unbraid that rope! Slice up that tether!
And melt this grapnel they’ve forged together.”

But, sitting in holy Heaven, He laughs.
God laughs at their sapless feeble crafts.
He pays them angry words for wage,
And burdens them with aching rage:

“And I!  I have already crowned
My king at Zion’s glory mound.”
What Spirit is whispering songs to me?
“You’re my own birthday child,” sings He.

“And if you reach out one small hand,
I’ll fill your fist with sweet rich sand,
so you can crush this grainy globe,
and sweep the dust beneath your robe.”

So then, sand-kings, plow carefully.
Go work your ground judiciously.
Jehovah God has named a boy.
Go kneel to him with quaking joy.

To soothe His fury, love His Son.
The battle of Earth, it has been won.
And trusting then in trembling bliss,
seal up your trusting with a kiss.