Early Art

Abraham at five would make a single line
Across the paper and tell me
That Buzz Lightyear had just flown off.
Fifty pages a day, sometimes, until
He went through a ream of paper,
A box of reams.

At six, he drew stick figures. Stick figures
Doing everything conceivable.
Some of them wore hats.
Looking back, I can see the development:
A curved line to suggest a hill
Behind the snowman;
A striped stick figure that I know is Hobbes.

I pulled out his stack of early art today,
And he went through it all for the first time
In years. Paper after paper, examining each
With the eye of a developing artist,
Patient with the artist he was then,
Not discarding the whole stack in boredom,
But rescuing fewer than forty sheets
From all those hours of diligent effort.

Anything at All

On Christmas, I allowed myself to
Do anything at all.

And I was surprised to find that
I didn’t make cinnamon rolls

But instead played
Bach for an hour or so,

And found colorful scraps of paper
And pasted them in a book,

The kind of art I feel competent doing,
A mash-up of pictures and colors I like.

At the End

At the end of Jake’s life,
Suffering from dementia,
A friend asked him
If he remembered that he
Had been a POW in Japan.

Incredulous, Jake shook his head.

The friend asked if he remembered
Being a missionary in Japan.

Alight now, Jake spoke passionately
Of his love for the Japanese, for his Savior.

Forty months of torture left
No permanent mark,
But the love of Christ shines
Through dementia.

Fill your mind well.

Average

The three boys in the next room slept through it all,
Until Joe’s first cry. Then Abraham awoke.
Phil took him downstairs, to the room right below,
Where his parents had also slept through it all.

For years I felt like a superior woman,
Giving birth so quietly the sleepers around me slept
Undisturbed. Until a midwife said, “That’s common.
During a homebirth, everyone is the best they can be,
As they welcome the new life. So some sleep deeper,
If that’s what’s needed.”

With those few words,
I am relegated again to just an average woman.

Sensitivities

Since Lent, my face has been red, inflamed.
My sister figured out that it was not a breakout,
But a rash, symmetrical, around my mouth.

I have tried for nine months to determine
The dietary cause. Some foods, on eating,
Make my face flare instantly.
But which one item in the multigrain chip?
Which one food in the locally made kraut?
Which one nut (or two) in the granola?

I finally gave up, and paid the big bucks
For the precision of bloodwork,
Teasing out the intricacies of sensitivities.

I learned the results today. Of the foods I eat
In a given year, I list the ones now restricted,
For three months to forever,
In order of the personal grief,
A lament, of sorts, for the foods that
I shall not enjoy.

Cow’s milk/butter/cheese
Spelt
Cane sugar
Pinto Beans
Cabbage
Cocoa
Apples
Maple sugar
Soybeans/tamari
Vanilla
Sesame
Basil
Parsley
Zucchini
Cashews
Blackberry
Goat’s milk/feta
Dates
Mango
Honey
Pecan
Beet
Grapes/Raisins
Black beans
Sardines
Strawberry
Cayenne/red pepper flakes
Cucumber
Pear
Plum/prune
Radish/horseradish/mustard greens
Spinach
Cantaloupe
Cloves

A Thing of Beauty: Advent XXV

Among specific requests for Christmas, I asked for
Something pretty. This is open to interpretation.
And my aesthetic is personal and pronounced.

I opened a small piece of art
Made in Uruguay, with a quote handwritten
That translates, roughly,

Because after everything I have understood
That what the tree has visibly in bloom
Thrives of what is buried beneath.

I finally understand
That I see a tree’s flowers
Because of what is buried, unseen.

And I sat and cried
Because this is so resonant with me.
My aesthetic is known.

Watching: Advent XXIV

Caleb climbs onto the window ledge
And looks out at the animals
Drinking, grazing, loafing.
“Cows,” he tells me, beaming.

These animals have been beasts of
Sorrow, frustration, disappointment
For me.
And yet, as they close out their tenure here,

I feel the regret that Caleb’s delight
Will no longer be right outside the window.
But that’s the way of the world:
No unalloyed joy.

No birth without death.

Myrrh: Advent XXIII

Wise Men brought
Myrrh. Affliction.
Burned during a funeral.
Used to embalm
(As Nicodemus brought,
Three decades or so later).

Also mingled with wine
To stupefy, sometimes called
Gall. Offered to a
Dying Savior
(Three decades or so later).

Think bitterness, suffering,
Death.

This gift, a prophecy at
His birth.

Frankincense: Advent XXII

Wise Men brought
Frankincense. Holiness.
A sweet savor, put on the
Offering and the
Priest.

Just so.

Think prayers, devotion.
Also used of the Song of Songs
Lover. His smell.

This gift, a prophecy at
His birth.

Gold: Advent XXI

Wise Men brought
Gold. Wealth.
Also a symbol of
Divinity:
Think golden calf,
Ark of the Covenant.

This gift, a prophecy at
His birth.

Look: Advent XX

We were studiously spelling,
Or reading, or playing,
When Abraham said,
“Look!”

Hundreds of small black birds
Flitted from one side of the clearing
To the other,
Until the sky seemed to shimmy.

We could have kept spelling,
Or reading, or playing,
But instead we took the time to
Look.

The Star: Advent XIX

There are various explanations of
The Wise Men’s star:
A supernova,
Or maybe the confluence of some planets,
Or perhaps a comet.

But whether because the date is off,
Or because it would be challenging for a supernova
To direct a traveler the short distance
Between Jerusalem and Bethlehem
(Let alone to a single house),

Some wonder if the Wise Men followed
A vision, personal to them.

I like the idea of a supernova
Somehow propelling urgency to travel.

But I also like the idea of a mass
Vision among Wise Men,
A light that they alone could see,
That caused them to leave the known
And travel into the unknown.

Extended Family: Advent XVIII

I have known that Elizabeth and Mary
Were related,
That the two women blessed
With such unexpected pregnancies
Had each other for mutual support.

But it wasn’t until today that I realized
I have always pictured Mary and Joseph
As only children.

But that is probably not very likely.

How odd to imagine what it would be
To be Jesus’s cousin,
Or maybe his uncle or aunt,
A child surrounded by so much drama.

Would they have appreciated that
Connection
With the Messiah?

Or would they want to avoid
All the awkwardness
Of an illegitimate birth,
A fleeing, returning?

Mourn: Advent XVII

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

I have liked the idea that this verse speaks of salvation.
Recognize your sin, mourn, and then …
Comfort!

And I recognize that this verse doesn’t say,
“Blessed are they that mourn,
For then they’ll get to mourn more.”
That would be unwelcome.

And yet I think again about what I’ve heard,
The more precise translation of makarios:
Happy. But not just happy. More like,
“You are in your happy place—
Right where you need to be.”
Mourning is right where you are supposed to be.

What craziness is this?

Because this world is broken.
Because there isn’t a better response.
Because after mourning, comfort comes.
Because God’s ways are not our ways.

Waiting: Advent XVI

My friend got engaged today,
And I went up to the surprise celebration.

Usually when I visit that house, I park in the driveway.
This time, I knew I would have to park along the street.
I am not a confident park-er.

I turned up a side street and pulled over,
Grateful to have found a spot open,
No need to parallel park.

As I walked up the road, a voice called:
“Excuse me! Where are you going?”
“To my friends’ house, around the corner.”
“You can’t park here. Park across the street.”

So I got into the car again, and turned around,
And maneuvered so that I wouldn’t have
Trouble getting out later. Relieved, I got out of the car.

“You can’t park there, either. You need to back way up.”
So I got in the car again, and backed up,
By this point almost in tears,

Because I had no desire to frustrate this woman,
But nor did I have any desire to be badgered
For something that wasn’t actually wrong.

And I suspected that if I had black skin,
I would have been welcome to park anywhere,
And the racial divide in this land makes me sad.

So I cried all the way up the road to the party.
And I cried in the car as I drove away.
And I wait for the restoration of all things.

Even no more possessiveness over street spots.
Even no more broken relationships.
Even no more unnatural terror of parallel parking.

Some days the waiting hangs heavier than others.

Advent XV

On December 13, we start
The Twelve Days of Christmas in Virginia.
We have done this for years,
Finishing, with a flourish,
“And a Cardinal in a Dogwood Tree!”
Every night from now until Christmas Eve.

And I think about how much pleasure
This silly book gives us,
How we look forward to it each year,
The laughter and the goofiness
And the celebration of place …

And maybe I can enter in to that
In Bethlehem, a place filled with
Shepherd’s laughter
And the goofiness of a Savior’s arrival.

Resonance

Once, when camping at Sequoia,
The ranger asked a series of questions,
To determine how many years folks had returned.

One couple was there for the thirty-fifth time.
I shuddered at the boredom that must entail.
Why not try thirty-five different parks in that time?

And though I still (mostly) fall into that same camp,
I had a glimpse of what might be appealing
About traveling the same road repeatedly.

When the Spanish Dancers came out in The Nutcracker,
In their marvelous red and black outfits, with fans,
I started weeping with the memory of two years ago,

When two sisters performed this dance
In their entry way, simply because I asked.
Later, when we went to the performance,
The older met my eye as she ran out,
Enormous grin, as if to say, “Isn’t this a scream?”

It was, for me, a vivid overlay.

I cried through that whole song,
Remembering the sweetness of our communion,
The passage of time,
The beauty of my young friends,

And how much I miss their mom.

Beauty: Advent XIV

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

Three years now we have gone
To a small theater to watch
Our friends in a short, creative version
Of The Nutcracker.

When my friend, the Snow Queen,
Came out, I found myself
Unexpectedly
Stifling sobs, at the great beauty
And poise and grace.

I am not usually brought to tears
By appearance.

Harsh: Advent XIII

Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.
But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.

The angel of the LORD could have appeared
Before Mary was even found to be pregnant.
That would have spared Joseph a good deal.

Instead, he went through turmoil and pain:
Unwelcome news,
An unbelievable explanation,
A painful interlude of trying to determine
What the right course of action might be.

And in the midst of all this churning thought
Comes the freedom of a dream.

Profession

As we sat in Bible study tonight,
Joe asked me how to spell “Jesus.”

He kept asking for the spelling of other words,
Until he had this message for me.

JESUS IS THE SON OF GOD.
BY Joe
BY THE WAY, THat IS
true.

Breakthrough

Joe and I have struggled on,
Month after month,
Year after year,
Trying to master the first
Twenty-six letter sounds.

He would read them on one page,
Only to forget them on the next,
And any booklets he got through
Were always a combination of
Guesswork, luck, and memorization.

Yesterday, he read about four sentences.

Today, he read eight new sentences,
A full booklet.
And asked for another one.

After he finished that, I was thrilled.
Incredible. What a difference a day makes,
To read without guessing,
With some hesitation, but mostly confidence,
With techniques he figured out himself
To jog his memory.

Over the years, he had read twenty-two of
Twenty-seen booklets.
With the two more today, now he had read twenty-four.
Only three to go.

When he saw that, his eyes sparkled.
“Let’s do them all!”
He said, enthusiastically.

And he did.

Joseph: Advent XII

The greatest honor in a Jewish man’s life:
The birth of a firstborn son.
Joseph gave this honor up
To God.

And he did not know Mary
Until after God’s child was born,
Allowing her womb to deliver
God’s son.
Later, his children.

Cheeks: Advent XI

When the baby first wakes,
Those immediate kisses
Are unique.

After his cheeks have relaxed all night,
There is no muscle tone,
No smile or chewing muscles flexed,
Just incredible softness
Beneath his bleary eyes.

I like the later-in-the-day kisses, too,
But these first are precious
Because they are so ephemeral.
How many more mornings will I get?

But then, could that not be said of all:
As we spend our days beneath the expanding sky?

Round: Advent X

A song for three or more unaccompanied voices or parts, each singing the same theme but starting one after another, at the same pitch or in octaves; a simple canon.

Most of us have enjoyed the satisfaction
Of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,”
Sung in a round; a simple tune
That, with company, becomes
Complex, beautiful.

Perhaps this is a picture of life
Together, all of us following the same Savior,
Where the multiple voices make something
Complex, beautiful.

Avail Yourself

We once took in a child for a time.
It was rough.

In the immediate aftermath,
God comforted me that I,
Broken caregiver,
Was still his beloved child.

In later years, I asked again:
What went wrong?
And the reply: There were riches
That you didn’t avail yourself of.

"Open in Silence: Advent IX"

I would like to open in prayer. We will begin with silence.

The gathering fell silent,
A space of stillness and peace.
The tension of the morning eased,
And in its place: gratitude, readiness.

“Be still and know that I am God.”

And in the stillness, God speaks.

Chimes: Advent VIII

Mild, these late fall days,
I sat outside, alone with God
For a few minutes of peace.

And across the distance
I heard the sound of wind chimes,
Like church bells, gently ringing.

Come to the house of the Lord.
Enter in. Rest. One day your longing
Will be swallowed by sight.

Make

Write a poem,
make a meal,

And what is made
Will be better than

What is not made,
Even if it’s not perfect.

Art

Art for me has always been a failure thing.

Exhibit: third grade tears in class over the imperfect star
To top my construction paper Christmas tree.

Exhibit: my only B in high school—
Drawing and painting 101.

I love art. I just don’t do art.

So when the opportunity came to create a collage,
I hardly expected anything to emerge that brought joy.

But as I looked through the collection of images,
I realized I am old enough and know enough to know what I like.

Hokusai’s Mt. Fuji print.
A candy pink feather.
Audubon’s bird painting.
(Even better: a blue bird, though not a bluebird.)
Anything iridescent.
Gold pens.
Fruit.

If I take things I like, and combine them,
It makes sense that I will like the end result.

And I did!

Ah, Education

The pastor of the host church host opened with prayer:
“We will begin with a time of silence.”

And we did, centering.
Then he thanked God.

The professor offered a meditation on the time of year:
A season of contrasts: rest, but unsettled;

We celebrate a birth
That we know ends in torture and death.

The cold weather comes in January and February
But all that time, the light is increasing.

She offered an invitation on the time of year:
Take the time to examine your life’s blueprint to see if you need to adjust.

The professor had packets of poems for all.
(She prepares these collections for each class:

Poems of insomnia, poems of opposites.
My friend has a full set from a class, a gift.)

We looked, then, at two of the poems in the packet.
She read them aloud, mentioned

That we enjoyed a “cold reading,”
Special, as it only happens once.

We talked about hot spots,
The places that jumped out.

(And unlike my college experience,
She offered additional insight into every comment.)

Next we did two directed five-minute writings:
Keep writing the whole time. Engage the brain.

One on a time when you felt close to God.
One on a time when you doubted.

Then she introduced a form of poetry I had never met:
Erasure, where the poet takes extant text

And removes much to create a new work.
We looked at multiple examples, beautiful, accessible.

Then a detailed explanation of the process we would follow,
Providing us newsprint and practice paper,

Linen paper for the art itself, fancy pens,
And a slew of interesting visuals from calendars, journals.

We had the time and the space to create, or maybe co-create,
A little sanctuary on a Saturday morning in Advent.

An incredible array of gorgeous creations
Emerged all over the room.

And as I left, I thought back to my college poetry class,
Where the professor clearly didn’t care much,

Stated that a bus schedule could be a poem,
Offered naught but a Norton Anthology.

A season of contrast. Thankfulness for this moment.
Sorrow that this could have been my education, and was not.

Do Not Be Afraid

A friend invited me to an Advent poetry workshop
With her professor, whom she loves.

So I found myself out early,
Driving beautiful back country roads,
Listening to The Messiah.

The closer I got, the more resistance I felt.
Am I a workshop person? (Not normally.)

But I pulled into the last parking spot,
Took a deep breath,
And went in.

Extant Text Erasure: Advent VII

Heaven and earth
gaps

Man and God
bridge
only through an act of grace

Yahweh gives
inherently deficient humans
redemption

I shared some emotions and thoughts
I communicate Art

Respond to crucified Christ suffering

Messiah
suffering horribly

The Voice of Gold: Advent VI

And Kumalo had not know that his friend had such a voice. For the voice was of gold, and the voice had love for the words it was reading. The voice shook and beat and trembled, not as the voice of an old man shakes and beats and trembles, nor as a leaf shakes and beats and trembles, but as a deep bell when it is struck. For it was not only a voice of gold, but it was the voice of a man whose heart was golden, reading from a book of golden words. And the people were silent, and Kumalo was silent, for when are three such things found in one place together?

And this golden voice reads
A promise of Advent.

I the Lord have called thee in righteousness
and will hold thine hand and will keep thee
and give thee for a covenant of the people
for a light of the Gentiles
To open the blind eyes
to bring out the prisoners from the prison
And them that sit in darkness
out of the prison house.

And the response is a response
Appropriate to Advent.

And the voice rose, and the Zulu tongue was lifted and transfigured, and the man too was lifted, as is one who comes to something that is greater than any of us. And the people were silent, for were they not the people of the blind eyes?

In the Light: Advent V

Every prayer seemed long to me at that age, and I was truly bone tired. I tried to keep my eyes closed, but after a while I had to look around a little. And this is something I remember very well. At first I thought I saw the sun setting in the east; I knew where east was, because the sun was just over the horizon when we got there that morning. Then I realized that what I saw was a full moon rising just as the sun was going down. Each of them was standing on its edge, with the most wonderful light between them. It seemed as if you could touch it, as if there were palpable currents of light passing back and forth, or as if there were great taut skeins of light suspended between them. I wanted my father to see it, but I knew I’d have to startle him out of his prayer, and I wanted to do it the best way, so I took his hand and kissed it. And then I said, “Look at the moon.” And he did. We just stood there until the sun was down and the moon was up. They seemed to float on the horizon for quite a long time. I suppose because they were both so bright you couldn’t get a clear look at them. And that grave, and my father and I, were exactly between them, which seemed amazing to me at the time, since I hadn’t given much thought to the nature of the horizon.
My father said, “I would never have thought this place could be beautiful. I’m glad to know that.”

In all the thousands of books I have read,
This remains, for me,
The most luminous passage.

Think of the boy and his father,
Standing in a graveyard,
Between the two great lights …

And I caught my breath to realize
That we, too, stand in a graveyard
Between the light of the first coming

And the light of the second.

God/Time: Advent IV

On this side of the Incarnation,
We look back to Christ’s coming,
Look forward to Christ’s return.

God in our past.
God in our future.
God in our present.

Christmas Music: Advent III

In middle school, I listened exclusively
To Christian radio. That meant, from Thanksgiving
To Christmas: all carols, all the time.
And every fourth one was “O Holy Night.”

To this day, I have a visceral reaction that that song.

And I grow grumpy that we spend somewhere around
A twelfth of our Sunday worship
On the small repertoire of Christmas classics.
“Look! A little baby!”
Great.
Whatever.

So it has surprised me,
Full of antipathy for those few overplayed songs,
To find several friends who love Christmas.

Except, I’ve learned, it’s not Christmas, that day of celebration
(And, usually, some dashed expectations).

It’s Advent, season of longing.

Four Hours a Day

Years ago I read a homeschool
How-to book that recommended
Reading aloud to the children
Four hours a day.

Now I love books more than most,
But that is still a tremendous amount of time.
I occasionally managed,
But mostly I failed.

I realized recently that
Audio books might be the answer.
No longer do they require
Changing a disc every hour or so.

I can order entire books for some bucks,
And the boys listen all afternoon
While they draw or build or play.
The impossible became possible.

Mimic

When I last mopped my bedroom,
I moved Phil’s slippers out from their place
Under his dresser.

I was mopping under the wardrobe
When I unexpectedly came across
Caleb’s little moccasins.

This might have been coincidence.
But I watch how Caleb watches Phil,
And I suspect this was another example of

Daddy Mimic.

Eight Miles

When the doctor designed special shoes
For leprosy patients, he couldn’t figure out
Why they kept getting blisters.

A healthy man volunteered to walk eight miles,
Wearing special socks that showed the pressure points.
He changed socks every two miles,

And, in the end, they found that
The pressure points had changed each time,
As the walker shifted his gait subtly.

Those without feeling in their feet never change.
And I forget how they solved this problem,
But, more, I am astonished that anyone thought to test.

Two Bumps in the Bed

In a chapter in the early reader Owl at Home,
Owl notices two bumps
At the bottom of his bed.
This bit of dramatic irony
Never fails to get a laugh from the reader.

I came into my bedroom today
To find two bumps in my bed.
Beneath blankets, I felt two round heads,
One curly and silent, one small and giggly.
I can read this story, and it made me laugh.

Incarnation: Advent II

I run up my driveway.
It’s steep, and I arrive at the top
And sit and pant.
The air fills my lungs.
My heart pounds in my chest.
I am corporeal.

Christ came into the world
As a man.
Corporeal.

Consider this mystery.

I Had a Little Extra Time

Tonight for our Supper Fellowship,
I made pot roast (pre-shredded for easy eating)
With a vegetable gravy,
And homemade gnocchi with
Garlic butter cheese sauce,
With fresh homemade bread and good butter,
And green beans.

One said, “This is stupid good,
Which is the highest praise I can say about anything.”

And, really, I think she was right.

The Stacks

I decided to read a book a day
For the next year. I figured
It wouldn’t finish my stacks of unread works,
But it would make a dent.

Four weeks in, I have read forty.

I realize now that I didn’t necessarily need
To read them all, but rather needed some feeling of order
Among my hundreds of unreads.
And I achieved that.

I have one book that I look forward to reading for fun. One.

Most of the rest of my books are not escapist pleasantry.
They are classics, with death and despair,
Or historical fiction, set during war and deprivation.
I have a goodly number of self-help,
More aptly titled, “How you’re doing it wrong,”
And a goodly number of Christian books (more of the same).

So I started to separate those that I intend to read
From those that I am not sure I ever want to get to.
And this was incredibly freeing.

I have shelves now, where I can pull one at will
And read it through.
And a single shelf with books that I am not committed to,
But will look at briefly and decide: be rid of? Or read?

But they are divided: the somedays from the maybe nots.

They have been organized.
All boys who entered the storage space
Were amazed at the difference.

And I am simply
Grateful.

The Ambulance and the Fence

There was a precipice.
People kept falling over,
Needing ambulances.

The city counsel proposed
An ambulance service. All voted
Yea, except one man. He suggested a fence.

“I have asked every one of the fall victims,
And all have wanted an ambulance.”
And so the ambulance service commenced.

We have both fence and ambulance.
The fence is the power, in Christ,
To be free from sin.

But should you skirt the fence and fall,
There is an ambulance available:
Repentance.

If we sin, our loving father still loves,
And so he disciplines. That is unpleasant.
So repent, and return to joy.

Preservative

I once sat in a lecture by a believer,
Who encouraged his hearers
Not to hold back unbelievers from
The slippery slope.
Instead, maybe give them a little push.

This was long ago, and I hope
His hope was that they would reach the bottom
And turn to Christ.

How different, though, from Christ,
Who called his followers to be the salt of the earth.

We live in an age of refrigeration.
In a hot climate without ice or electricity,
Salt would have been a preservative.
(And a flavor enhancement.
And a substance needed for survival.
If you sweat too much with salt, you die.)

This world is decaying.
So preserve what you can.

I suspect that love
Goes further towards winning souls
Than a push.

Bach

After months of painstaking practice,
I can play “Moonlight Sonata,” mostly.

Full stop.
That one piece was so challenging,
And took so long, I had no direction next.

I thought recently about Bach.
He, perchance, had some simple piano exercises.

And so arrived a book, and I started the first one.
Immediately recognizable,
“Minuet in G.”

So lilting and lovely it makes me cry
Even to play it imperfectly,
Or when I hear it in a tinny YouTube video.

I know this is not a difficult piece,
And that I will be able to play it well at some point
Somewhat soon,
But until then, I get to enjoy
The glory of Bach.

Such a gift.

Advent I

A candle for hope.

Not only a remembrance that Christ came,
But a reminder that, to this world of woe,
Christ will come again.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Knives

I once bought a set of inexpensive,
Sharp knives for travelling.
I could cook on the road without risking anything expensive.

A friend saw this and was impressed,
But she later mentioned that she went to the store
And they were gone.

Months later, I was shopping and noticed the set.
And so I bought them, hesitantly,
Because who knows if her family had them in mind.

But seeing her joy and overwhelming gratitude
Reminded me:
Do not delay being kind.

Green Tea and Shortbread

Of all cookies, shortbread has always seemed
A bit lacking: no chocolate chips;
No chewy mouth-feel, like a snickerdoodle;
No lucious sweet-sour topping like a lemon square.

Sugar, butter, flour, vanilla, salt.
Bake to a crunch. Done.

But something about the rich sweetness
Called me when I was sick.

And in the morning, when I brewed green tea
And tried dipping:
That was a revelation.

But of course. This was something
My mother had mentioned long ago.
This is why my grandma took a midmorning break.

Get a little perfection in your mouth.
Go about your day, renewed and refreshed.

Treasure Hunt

Mind-dull with a head cold’s fatigue,
I found on my door, this post-it note:
“There starts the treasure hunt: out door.”

And so I followed the trail of post-it notes,
Lovingly placed by one son,
While the other four sons bounded ahead and swarmed behind,
One keeping up a color commentary.

There was a red herring, the word “Fire,” which,
When I opened the cold stove to take the note,
Found, “Not here,” an unexpected full stop.
Nor did it mean lighter, candle, matches, or Lego flames
(Eventually I realized: an electronic device).

This was not, strictly speaking, a treasure hunt,
As the prize was only the encouraging note:
“You made it yay!!!!!”

And yet, there was a treasure.
The thought and care and kindness that was given in
The several dozen clues.
The companionship of sons.

Let me not dismiss this treasure
Simply because there was nothing tangible.

Hard Core

Jonathan Goforth,
Missionary to China.

Cruelly bullied at Christian school.
Loved the perpetrators so that, four years later,
They agreed to support him financially for life.

Lost all to a fire.
Rebuilt.
Lost all to a flood.
Rebuilt.
Lost most to theft.
Rebuilt.

Five. Children. Dead.

The others, along with wife and self,
Almost killed during the Boxer Rebellion.

Blind the last few years of life.

Ever evangelistic, optimistic.
Intent on furthering the kingdom of God.

I read his life story and think,
Like Noah and the prophets of old:

This man was hard core,
Persevering to an extreme I cannot begin to imagine.

Expectancy

The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today.

I realize that Seneca has more fame
Than I could ever hope,
And yet I question his quote.

Is it not more fun to savor the coming joy?
When I prepare for a trip,
I appreciate the anticipation;

Rather than diminishing my today,
It enhances it.
Actually, this is true for a trip

Or eternity.

Shakespeare

A week ago, an unexpected treat:
All home on a Friday night.

I made the boys watch
Much Ado About Nothing,

As Shakespeare has been on my list
Of “Don’t let them leave home without it”

Things for the boys to learn.
One of the boys, miserable, cried through the first half.

(But one of the boys laughed so hard,
He almost fell off the couch.)

Tonight we had a reprise,
So we enjoyed Twelfth Night.

We missed the jester’s lines, of course,
But when the entire group

Broke into laughter at the duel,
I enjoyed a moment of timelessness.

Four hundred years now
Have people been laughing at Shakespeare.

Helper

A guest came.
He chose a beer.

Caleb reached into the right drawer
And pulled out the can opener,

Brought it to the guest,
And, after its use, returned it.

A helper, alert and cheerful,
Though he yet has to acquire speech.

Suffering

Try to remember the old law: selfishness begets evil and generosity begets good.

Let your good outweigh your bad.
Love to get love.
Is this not the basis of most religion?

Job’s friends understood the appeal
Of such an orderly universe.
So when evil befell him, they knew who to blame:

Job. He must have done wrong,
And now is reaping what he sowed.
It sounds so true.

Except it isn’t.
Job reaps pain where he sowed righteousness.
His actions had no correlation with his receipts.

This carries over: “Love your neighbor as yourself,”
Said the one who was tortured and killed
By the enemies he loved.

They were stoned,
They were sawn asunder,
Were tempted, were slain with the sword:

They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins;
Being destitute, afflicted, tormented;
(Of whom the world was not worthy:)

It seems to me that followers of Christ both affirm and deny
This idea of karma,
Of spiritual cause and effect.

The good that you do has cosmic significance.
And yet the good that you do may have
No rewards now.

And, indeed, no more reward later than that
Available to all:
Eternal life.

A Voice

None of my children had ever spoken up
As we sit at table with our larger family on Sunday night.

One young lady shared about her busy week,
That she had filled up her gas tank four times.

Isaiah piped up: “How big is your gas tank?”
And we all laughed.

He had said something
In the midst of the congregation.

The next morning, we read of Peter’s denial,
And he spoke up again.

“I find it interesting that the cock crowed once
After his first denial. He had a warning.”

True. Speak up, brother.
We need to hear your voice.

Happiness Is ...

Saturday night, in the playroom’s chair,
Four brothers cluster around the oldest,
As he reads a graphic novel aloud—
“But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?”

Romeo and Juliet,
Reading pleasure of choice
By the band of brothers.

Bloomability

In high school, I read this book
About a girl who goes to boarding school
In Switzerland:

Day trips to Florence,
Or the home of Herman Hesse (after reading one of his works),
Learning Italian,
A two-week ski school.

I read it now again
And cry
Because since then I have been to Florence,
And I have listened to Italian,
And I have tried skiing and anchovies,

And I have, I think,
Lived my life with gusto and gratitude,
And I think I can say to my younger self,
Of course you admire this idyllic life.
You should. But do not long for it.
You, too, have had a good run.

Trafficking

When Africans were sold into slavery,
They cost about as much as a nice car.
They were an investment.

Today, a pimp says that the price of a girl
Is literally nothing;
Some kind words in a vulnerable moment.

With nothing invested,
They have no reason to do maintenance,
Cheaper to dispose of one body and get another.

Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Guilty Pleasure

I know the benefits of brown rice:
More fiber, more nutrients.

But I found one final container of
White jasmine rice
And we have been eating it
With alacrity.

So tasty!

Growing

Even as an infant, Jadon didn’t
Like hugs. We called him
Our porcupine, he was so prickly,
Or octopus, because arms and legs
Kicked out at those trying to get close.

He was standing in the kitchen
And I gave him a hug.
My son, up to my chin,
Almost my equal in weight.
He said, “Yuck!” and brushed himself off.

A Poem to My Ears

Mum-mum, mwah
Mum-mum, mwah

Repeated over and over
By little boy lips.

Precisely So

How dull our days, how lacking in surprise
Without these small epitomes of sin,
These flowers with their store of life within
And grave, appalling freshness in their eyes.

Frances Cornford sums up
Parenthood, admirably.

Tell John

When John the Baptist,
Imprisoned, asked Jesus if
He was the one who was to come,
Or should he wait for another,

The messengers waited and watched
An hour, while Jesus worked.

Then Jesus said, Tell John:

The blind see
The lame walk
The lepers are cleansed
The deaf hear
The dead are raised
To the poor the gospel is preached.

The last miracle mentioned,
Apparently, not less than the rest.

March

Since May, I have been cataloging books,
Going through drawers,
Slowly reducing my email inbox from fifteen hundred.

I have been trying to order my life.
Books I don’t remember, or those unread,
I moved to storage. Same with “Someday/Maybe” cookbooks.

Today, I finished the house.
Cleaned from top to bottom, I have a free and open space,
Perhaps more easy to maintain.

In the course of cleaning, last week
I found a note to myself from March, that I had forgotten,
That expressed how overwhelmed I felt,

With random stuff everywhere.
I am thankful that, in the same calendar year,
I had time to work toward resolution.

Great Art

Happiness in art …
Does it exist?

Are there great works
Without brooding
Or sorrow?

Don’t the harder things
Resonate more?

Worship music
Resonates, too.

Truth sung,
Joyful praise.

Perhaps God
Has a monopoly
On happiness,

And so anything
Apart from him

Falls flat.

Christmas Music

I have two or three Christmas albums.
I listen to them once every year or two.

But Handel’s Messiah
I listen to every year, all year. The choir sang,

Wonderful! Counselor!
The Mighty God! The Everlasting Father!
The Prince of Peace!

In the verbal equivalent of a company front,
I got chills again
At the power and beauty of truth, proclaimed.

While I Drove

I thought about a time of rich friendship,
Two couples, one single,
Laughing and talking, congenial joy.

I wished this could last forever,
Though I knew it wouldn’t.

One started cancer treatments.
One started dating.

One has since died.
The other, now engaged.

At the time, I grieved the change
In friendship that treatment,
Dating, brought.

Now I look back and think,
The death was going to happen.

What a grace, that the dating
Started when it did.

Runneth Over

When you first came,
You were a cup filled with sorrow,

Where the slightest jostle
Spilled gut-wrenching sobs.

Now you have a new song.
Your cup overflows—

Love. Joy. Grace. Restoration.
Thanks be to God.

Thankful

When Phil learned
That our fifth
Was a boy,

He was (a little) sad.
He wanted a girl
To snuggle.

Today we watched Caleb
Running around the house
With two older brothers,

All making shooting noises
With pencil “guns,”
Thoroughly satisfied with life.

“What would a girl
Have done in this house?”
He wondered, glad for five sons.

Mother-Daughter Tea

Despite my lack of female offspring,
I was invited to a mother-daughter tea,
And allowed the option of a college friend
To be my daughter for the duration.

Three other mothers with daughters,
And three hostesses, unmarried,
Spent the afternoon drinking tea
And eating tidbits,

And I drove home thinking how few
Opportunities there are for adults
To spend time with children,
Both as equals. No “children’s table” there.

Starving

I don’t usually leave the house without snacks,
But I was in a hurry and departed,
Filled up with grits (and the butter and sugar on top).

Five hours later, when we sat down for Thai food,
I could have eaten two meals.
I considered it.

Instead, we went to a French pastry shop,
And enjoyed the smell of butter and the look of the éclairs.
I ate a slice of flourless chocolate cake.

And when I got home,
I downed a bowl of tortilla soup
And, shortly afterwards, two tacos. So hungry!

VMFA

To see hundreds of works in a few hours,
And come away with only several dozen
Moments of transcendence
Felt … a bit flat.

Until I thought about all I saw in those few hours.

A torso by Praxiteles.
Faience, brilliant blue Egyptian pottery, breathtaking.
A mummy.
Papyrus with hieroglyphics.
An enormous Roman mosaic.
Early Renaissance feathers, painted precisely.
A lovely nude of Venus by Artemesia Gentilleschi.
A painting of grapes by Soreau, luminous beyond imagining.
A Fabrege egg. For real! Right there!
A portrait of Lydia Schabelsky. Gorgeous. And what is she thinking?
The Little Dancer by Degas.
A vanishing ship on the sea by Magritte.
A fascinating room of prints, demonstrating nightfall:
Rembrandt, Hopper, Gericault; Yankee Stadium and Taos.
A Tiffany vase.
A Rousseau of a gorilla trying to steal a spear from a man.
A bowl of daisies by Van Gogh.
A Rothko black on black.
Renoir’s son, painting studiously.
A Monet wintry scene: so chilly. And a more cheery flower field.
A painting of John Marshall, beautifully done. (He looked nice.)
A glorious canvas of a woman by John Singer Sargent.
An Audubon eagle.
Landscape with a wing: a response to the Holocaust.
A Jasper Johns that looked grey, but with hidden color.
A Diebenkorn with such beautiful colors, it mesmerized me.
A Calder mobile!
Three stylized lemons on a plate.
A roseate, misty painting.
A Hopper apartment building. Everyone is isolated. Always.
Colored streaks flowing down a canvas.
Red reeds made of glass in a shallow fish pond. Chihuly. Glorious.
And my favorite: a mango, with other fruit, by Gauguin.

Three dozen moments of transcendence?
We should all be so lucky!

How I Do an Art Exhibit

I like to walk through,
Looking at each work briefly,
Enjoying, despising, indifferent.
Then, at least, I know I’ve seen it all.

Then I return to my favorites,
To soak in the color,
To admire the brushstrokes,
To think about the details.

A New Season

Two friends invited me
On a trip to Richmond,
To the Museum of Fine Arts.

Years ago, Phil would say to me,
“You never go anywhere!
I wish you would.”

And today I did.

Pity Not

As beautiful as I found the falling leaves,
I grieved a bit about those that drop in the dark,
Where no one watches their gentle tumble,
Perhaps a bit like trees that fall in the forest
With no one to hear. Do they make a sound?
And then I remembered this creative answer to my concern.

“There was a young man who said "God
Must find it exceedingly odd
To think that the tree
Should continue to be
When there's no one about in the quad."

Reply:
"Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd;
I am always about in the quad.
And that's why the tree
Will continue to be
Since observed by, Yours faithfully, God.”

Release

Three times in ten minutes
Did a gust drop hundreds of leaves.
What mechanism makes each leaf
Drop in the minute it does,
Neither two minutes before,
Nor two minutes later?

In any case: this performance
Plays all month.

Fall

I watched the leaves waft down
In the wind’s ballet.

Grieving

One son cried today,
Reluctant to explain.
In the end, he was sad,
For he didn’t know how
To deal with a brother’s
Disobedience.

Yes, my son, this is hard.
Others make bad choices,
You will see all your life.

Correct them privately.
If no change, then find another,
Probably parents in this case.
And all of it do in love.

Blooming

In general, I realize that children learn things at their own pace,
That if I had two sons reading readily at four and five,
It is okay if two more still struggle at seven and nine.

A bell curve has outliers, but they, too, are a part of the curve.

So I noticed with thanksgiving this week
That Abraham, from one day to the next,
Went from reading sequels to Nate the Great
To reading almost 200 pages in Smile,
A graphic novel about a middle schooler and her traumatic teeth.
“My brothers kept urging me to keep reading, so I did!”

And, perhaps buoyed by this success,
He started to write a fable, illustrated, yes, but predominately words,
Not pictures.

And Joe, whom I have worked with daily for a year and more,
Who still forgets more than half the letter sounds,
Got a short movie yesterday that sings, for each sound,
“The B says /b/,” starting with A and going all through.
He spent the evening singing these sounds under his breath,
Writing them and erasing them on his created whiteboard.
An aural learner, perhaps, who needed less visuals and more sound.

And so we learn together.

The Wind

When I returned to my hollow,
I remembered that, last time, I sought to sit
High on the slope, but felt called,
Inexplicably, to the floor.
From that vantage point, I saw the leaves
Falling so beautifully as to blind me.

I had forgotten this small prompting,
And record it now to say
Obedience is important,
Even in the little things,
For my own good.

Autumn Praise

Angels in the earth are shouting choruses of autumn praise.
Gold upon the trees is shaking, leaves in their translucent way;
Kingly garment, radiant blue, spread across the cloudless sky;
Dancing breeze to stir the treetops, swaying branches lifted high.

The sun, a strongman in his glory, brave upon the midday stage.
Silver diamonds on the water, tossed on joyful skipping waves.
Children running on the hilltops, in the rolling golden grass
Is this all just earnest payment of a great inheritance?

Now, while we have breath within us, let us offer thankful praise.
We’ve been rescued by the Shepherd, from the dark and stormy day.
We’ve seen winter, our souls frozen, through the nights of numbing cold.
Jesus gives to earthly paupers from the warmth of heaven’s gold.

Oh my soul, a taste of heaven, signals coming glory bright.
See him clothed in brilliant robes, the Lamb of God in perfect light.

Written by a friend, a decade and more,
This has been my October praise song,
From the yellow aspens in Colorado
To the long, vibrant orange fall in Virginia.

This year, the praise extended to the rocky coast of
Portland, Maine, where I stood overlooking
The diamonds on the waters of the ocean,
The colors of the trees around the bay.

In the clear blue skies and beautiful sunlight of the afternoon,
My niece ran down the grassy hilltop behind me,
And, later, many children rolled down a grassy slope with glee.
We offered thankful praise.

Theophostic Prayer for Me

The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

Phil and I talked at length,
Trying to figure out
Direction for the farm.
What do we invest in?
What would allow the boys to learn?
To earn?

In the end, I grew too agitated
To continue the talk,
Overwhelmed with the ways
This farming life has disappointed.

While Phil took the boys to hike the land,
I went out into the brisk midday
And sat for a time in peace,
And dealt with God.

“I feel like you brought us here
And then left us alone.”

My child, I will never leave you
Or forsake you.

While my eyes stayed shut,
Then came a breeze,
And what came to mind was,
A line from the gospel of John and
“You cannot see the wind,
Only the effects of the wind.”

Then I opened my eyes
And my entire vision was captured
By falling leaves
In the sunshine and shadow of the forest floor.

But into this transcendence
I thought again of all the failures,
And I sobbed with all the sorrow
Of year after year of trial and failure.
“We are idiots! Nothing has come out
Anything like the books claim!”

I am teaching you things you can’t learn in books.
Like: how to listen to me.
You have been amply provided for.

All of this is true.

And if it isn’t precise direction for the future,
It is solace for the frustrations of the past.

Thanks be to God.

Two Marriages

God tells Hosea to marry Gomer.
She’s a prostitute.
She bears children.
She leaves him to ply her trade.
Were the sons even his?
Probably not.
He goes after her and brings her back,
Unfaithful woman that she is,
A crazy picture of the love of God
For his people.

There is one other instance in the Bible
Of God telling a man to marry.

Mary was pregnant, not by Joseph.
God told him to marry her anyway.
So he does. And Jesus comes.
A crazy picture of the love of God
For all people.

Reprieve

Sometime after the boys were abed,
Presumed asleep,
We heard a crash and investigated.

The ceiling fan light cover had smashed.
We heard rumor of a son kicking the fan….
This has never, of course, been allowed.

We cleaned up the glass.
Told said son he would pay for the damage.
And Phil told of his growing years,

When he, too, was long on intelligence
And short on common sense.
The disaster ended as well as could be hoped.

And when I went to order a replacement,
Beyond all hope, the glass is covered under warranty.
Free.

Jane Austen

Two novels I know well,
The most beloved Pride and Prejudice
And the ever delightful Emma.

The other four I have heard, read with a British accent,
As I worked in the kitchen these last two months.
They are not at all similar.

Northanger Abbey is a spoof on Gothic novels,
Beginning with the narrator’s good-natured surprise that
Catherine Morland could be a heroine, as she was never locked in a dungeon.

It is a frothy novel, a coming-of-age,
As the naïf falls in with some nasty social-climbers
And yet finds her way to an intelligent and cheerful young man.

Mansfield Park, lengthy, the only novel named for a house,
With a heroine a bit less likeable than most, weak and shy Fanny Price,
Who nevertheless shows more character than any other,

And avoids seduction by a coxcomb,
And, as with all of Jane Austen’s heroines,
Manages to marry far better than one might expect.

Persuasion, written the year of the author’s death,
Shows Anne Elliot, nearly thirty and unmarried,
Thrown together again with the man she was persuaded to reject

Eight years before. The weight of meaning
In a single glance; the constant dance of social convention:
What a drama around such meager interactions.

And Sense and Sensibility, one I heartily disliked
The one time I read it, with Eleanor Dashwood
Attempting always to act upright,

In a world of incredibly nasty people on all sides.
She seeks to be true to the one she loves,
Even if that means they will not marry.

I am astonished each day by the moral gravity,
The beauty of the language,
The incredible tension in the plots.

Marketing

Phil spent a week, crafting a brochure
To sell our beef.

It was well thought-out, with smaller boxes of meats,
Very competitively priced.

Out of our entire contact list,
We have orders for forty-five pounds.

We are gratified by the three friends
Who have expressed interest.

But we wanted to process six cows this year,
And we do not have freezer space until more moves.

We wonder again:
Just what is it that God is doing here?

Nate the Great

I remember reading these early reader
Detective stories when I was a girl,
And Abraham and I plug away at them,
Day by day,

As Nate the Great seeks for a lost weed
Or a missing birthday surprise
Or a stolen beach bag
Or a missing picture.

He asked me today if, perhaps,
When he has finished the series,
He could read a graphic novel
Or another early reader,

And I assured him that he could read them
Now, as he desires,
Indeed, could read as much as he might wish
For the rest of his life.

This is the blessing of being literate.

The Kitchen Sink

Within the first month of my new sink,
I inadvertently left some onion skins in
Overnight. Permanent stain.

For two years now, the stains have accumulated,
Until the bottom of the sink turned brown,
Even when wiped clean.

Buried in a drawer of warranties and instructions,
Today I came across the sink’s cleaning instructions:
Use a powdered cleanser and a scotch brite pad.

I would never have considered the scotch brite;
I assumed it would scratch.
So, expecting nothing, I put down the powder and scrubbed.

I wish now that I had before and after photos.
My sink has some scratches. Metal pans will do that, I suppose.
But the stains have vanished.

My sink is as white as it was the first month we had it.
Every time I walk by, I have a thrill of surprise.
My sink is no longer just a workhorse, but a showpiece.

Civilized

The degree to which you successfully govern yourself and your circumstance determines your dignity and what honors are requisite to it.

I have resisted the idea
That an orderly environment is needed
For successful self-government.
Most days, it seemed enough simply to survive.

For some months now,
I have been gradually ordering my environment.

New clothes for the boys, for myself.
Gradual recording of all books, why I like them.

A complete overview of the kitchen:
The standard items,
The unusual; the cookbooks and devices.

I am not done yet.

But I looked out my bedroom door today
And saw nothing on the counter. It surprised me.

I am working towards personal good governance.

A Mystery Paragraph

The room was vast and echoing, and the colossal ceiling was vaulted, which made it look like it was built and inhabited by beings unhuman. The windows were lofty; they had arches at the very peaks that made them look like a hole through which the eye of the sun peered, casting light of red and gold. The floor was oak, but by the corners, the light did not reach, possibly disguising pitfalls. Curtains hung at the dreary windows. The furniture in the room looked like ramparts to keep out invaders.

A school assignment:
Take this mediocre descriptive paragraph
And transform it into the beginning of a mystery.

I laughed in delight, reading what my young teen wrote,
And went about my day
Happy to be in the company of such a creative.

The Dishes

It is easy, when living together,
To add up petty irritations,
To know who didn’t do their dishes.

My friend chose to do the dishes of her roommates,
Rather than hold their slackness against them.
In this, she chose the way of peace.

Watch and Pray

My friend’s mother came from out of town
And visited Supper Fellowship
While we were away.

We try to have a time of listening prayer,
And she had a beautiful vision,
A prophetic word for our part of Christ’s body.

This last night, she awoke and heard for us:
Watch and pray.
Which is good advice always, but in this case

For our relationship with God,
For our relationship with each other,
And for our own selves. Watch and pray.

Meatloaf in Bulk

Ever since we got five pound packages
Of ground beef,
I have been trying to figure out
What to do with them.

Today I figured I would make meatloaf in bulk,
Ready to feed the ravening hordes
When they came to supper.
Except the hordes didn’t come.

This felt like a let-down.
Without a microwave,
Leftover meatloaf isn’t overly appealing.
And I spent so much of my day preparing food.

So I sent food home with all I could.
And in a few hours, got a note from a friend.
Several had come in the intervening time,
Dealing with traumas great and small.

None had eaten.
Now they had.
Even my miscalculation
Turned out for God’s glory.

Thanks be to God.

Startled

Phil was clearing fence line
With the chainsaw.
He had ear muffs on to protect his hearing.
Nothing had crossed his peripheral.

Suddenly
A light tap on the shoulder.

He shrieked “like a little girl,”
Astonished by how unprotected he felt,
And turned to find two young sons,
Laughing hysterically.

They had come to see what he was doing.
They had not sneaked up,
Had no intention of startling him.

But, since it happened,
They manage to get a belly laugh about it
Every day since.

One Word

Jadon described the men in our family
Using one word each.

Phil: logical.
Isaiah: inquisitive.
Abraham: imagery.
Jonadab: goofball.
Caleb: helpful.

And himself?
Jadon: perfect.

And then he laughed.

I Gasped All Day Long

There were places in Maine
That were stunningly beautiful.

I returned to the oranges and yellows
Of Virginia, abashed by the paucity of the reds,

Shaking my head over what passes for Fall here.
It is not, I thought, very special.

Now I wonder if our leaves had simply delayed,
For every time I glanced out the window today,

I gasped. All day long.
Yes, yellows all round our clearing. But there!

And when I peaked in the woods:
There were reds. And driving up my road: reds more.

I shall not despise the Fall transformation here.
I can rejoice in beauty wherever it is found.

Quiet

A popular book about the power of introverts
Pops up periodically in conversation.

I have never thought I was an extrovert,
Though I have wondered if I was an ambivert,

That versatile personality that is equally happy
With people or alone.

So I was surprised, on taking the unscientific quiz,
How forcefully I came up as an introvert.

It makes me think that I should make sure
I have some quiet time to process each day.

Haircut Ruminations

Today I got a haircut. I thought, a lovely thing about getting older is seeing these hints of people that you have loved in the mirror. I thought, I am lucky to have loved my grandparents, my great aunts and uncles. I had never expected that in the sagging chin and widening cheeks I would see little bits of my grandmother, my mother, my grandpa that make me beam. A beautiful memory is a very warm and wonderful thing. It just wasn't what I was expecting to see in the crow’s feet around my eyes.

The last few haircuts I have had,
I rail silently against the paleness and aging of my face
Under the harsh lights.

I don’t usually think much about how I look,
But sitting with plastered-down hair, immovable …
I am distressed by my appearance.

Behold, how great the contrast between my petty thoughts
And the beautiful meditation of my friend.

Blackberry Jam

We buy jam from France. Ridiculous, but
Desirable not only for the variety of flavors,
Pineapple mango and raspberry pomegranate,
Besides the more standard strawberry,

But also because it is sugar-free,
A recipe that uses only grape juice
With apples as the natural pectin.
I can’t duplicate this at home.

All jam recipes I’ve seen call for
A pound of sugar to a pound of berries,
Which makes the whole so insipidly sweet
As to be thoroughly undesirable.

Recently, though, a new pectin came to market,
Allowing a quarter of the sugar usually called for.
Anxious to empty my freezers,
I made a batch today.

We taste-tested traditional blackberry jam from a friend
With Lykosh farm berries, made with low-sugar.
Our blackberry jam almost made me cry,
The blackberry flavor was so much more punchy.

And I thought of the sun-dried tomatoes,
The dehydrated garlic,
The canned tomatoes that turned bad,
The applesauce that none of us eat,

The crabapple jelly that is sugar in a jar,
The spelt and oat grains unhusked and unused,
The milking that produced small quantities for a short time.
So many Lykosh farm products I’ve tried and failed.

At last … a farm-raised product
I made in my kitchen
That I am excited to make again,
That we will actually use.

Samson

His parents were told
That he would deliver his people.

He wasn’t the godly young man
Any proud mother would be happy to claim.

And yet God’s purpose went forth.
He delivered his people.

Wicked

For Christmas last year,
I asked for a book by an author I enjoyed.
It was far longer than I expected,
And so I got the audible version to enjoy.

After a half hour listening, I stopped for a week.
Perhaps that should have been a clue.
I pressed on another half hour today,
Until the barrage of unpleasantness, malice, hatred
Overwhelmed me,
And I returned the audible version
And put the book in the giveaway pile
With great rejoicing.

One less thing to do in my life.

Puzzles on the Floor

For nigh on three hours tonight,
I read aloud from Fields of Home,
The end of the story of how Ralph goes to his grandfather’s
And they turn a worn out farm around.

One man and three boys did puzzles on the floor
As they listened.
The fourth boy listened,
And the fifth walked over the puzzles or sat in my lap.

All of us together
As the time grew late and later,

And we all went to bed satisfied.

Crock Pot

Six years now, the six-gallon buckets
Of beans have sat in the barn.
Old and older, I tried, occasionally,
To soak them and cook them into softness,
Usually giving up after twenty-four hours.

I would furtively add canned beans to the grocery list,
And Phil would buy them with a sense of defeat.

Incredibly, despite occasional exposure to the humid climate,
The beans remained mold-free,
Appearing only more desiccated as the years passed.

Fifteen years now, I have had a crock pot.
It went from too big to be practical
To too small to feed us all,
And I distrusted the appliance almost immediately
After a disastrous broccoli-tuna casserole experience.
As if that even sounds appealing.

So imagine my delight when
A random line
In a Mexican cookbook caught my eye,
That crock pots cook beans perfectly.

I have tried this statement and found it true.
Black beans: I no longer wonder if I would crack a tooth.
Garbanzos: Incredibly, two hours to cook to perfection.

My buckets of beans have been restored to me!
The shame of misplaced purchases has been replaced
With joy.

Victory

We have an old bachelor friend.
When asked how he is, he always says the same thing:
“Victory.”

Can anyone have unending victory?

This response seemed facile.

Until we considered that perhaps
He is speaking from the reality of the believer,
Not the changing emotions of the moment.

The Dance

We went to a wedding.
As I stood, shortly before we left,
I watched the dance floor.

Children, by birth and grafted in.
Two of my college mentors.
The couple who mentored them.

The only couple we regularly double-dated.
Two children I babysat, now grown and married.
The couple they loved, who loved the family well.

The man who married us.
The couple who arrived first the day we miscarried.
The beautiful young wife of Phil’s first young mentor.

And I was overwhelmed with the layers
Of faithful followers who have passed on what they have received,
Overwhelmed with the surpassing joy of that moment,

Until I could hardly keep from weeping.
My heart overflowed with the love of God,
And I understood what it is to be overpowered by love.

This collection of beautiful children of God
I will see again in the coming Kingdom.
I wait in eager expectation and sure hope.

Names of God

A professor of biblical studies
Asks his students not to call him
“Dr. Lamb.” It is a struggle for them.
When they use his first name,
He feels they have crossed into
A new frontier of friendship.

How interesting, then,
That the Bible uses God’s name,
“Yahweh,” in the Old Testament,
And God’s name,
“Jesus,” in the New Testament,
More than any other attribution.

Perhaps we could consider
Using God’s given names,
And crossing into such a new frontier.

Uzzah

Touched the ark,
Struck dead,
Poor Uzzah!

Until you think:

The ark was meant to be carried on a litter,
Respect due honorable dignitary or king,
Not set in the back of a cart
Like some object needing hauling.

Their enemies choose this method of transport.
Why imitate the enemies, rather than obey their God?

We don’t handle radioactive material
Without proper gear.

We understand being struck dead
For an imprudent touch,
Unjust though it may seem.

They got it right three months later.

Discipline

When Phil asked a son
To get his ear protection from the barn,
The son delayed.

When asked again,
He dallied on the way.
This was not good.

Rather than losing his temper,
Once the ear protection arrived,
We had the son run up the drive and back

Three times. With me.
I had forgotten how steep the driveway is.
I hope this will be memorable; the obedience, lasting.

Benefits Beyond

I do my best to plan vacations well.

This trip, though, surpassed my skill,
As if God took my meager efforts and
Magnified them.

Not only the weather, which could not be more perfect.

But that I hadn’t registered for a trip the first day:
The seas were so choppy, it wouldn’t have happened anyway,
But who needs the stress?

But that the first excursion we took,
Not only took us to an unexpected treat,
“The only fjord on the East Coast”
(though it is really a “fjard,” lacking steep sides),
But also so thoroughly explained all the islands
And landmarks in Frenchman Bay,
We received the benefit the rest of the week.

But that the sea kayaking, the day we went,
Had perfect tides for us to circle Bar Island,
That those who went enjoyed it so thoroughly.

But that we had a good number of activities,
And that by letting the family self-select
Which ones they wanted to do,
Everyone was happy almost all of the week.

But that we reached the little train five minutes before it left,
But that we reached the observatory and had a short wait,
But that between us all we found take-out food,
But that we made our flight with five minutes to spare,
But that tempers stayed calm and cousins played well,
But that the amusements we brought were sufficient and fun.

For these, and more that I am surely forgetting,
I give thanks.

Weather

Two days before we landed in Portland,
The city flooded; people abandoned their cars.
We arrived and drove under clear skies, on clear roads.

The forecast had predicted a week of rain.
The hurricane turned aside, then,
And if the weather was a bit cold initially,

It meant we got out of one boat ride too many,
That we were extra thankful for the warm food to eat,
And that we were impressed all the days it was fine.

Which, actually, was every day,
Each day more glorious than the last,
Until the day we needed to move on.

That day was grey, and rained from
The start of our drive, a steady rain that
Would have been miserable, had we been outside.

But on the morrow, a day of traipsing about,
We once again enjoyed clear skies,
We yet still felt the graciousness of God in our travels.

Potty Training, or Something

With no one home but me,
Caleb stripped naked and wandered around the house.
I called to him at intervals,
Asking if he wanted to go potty.

Finally I heard the eager footsteps run to the right room,
And I followed,
Only to find that he was running out again,
A tiny swatch of toilet paper in his hand,
Eager to help mop up
The puddle
On the chair,
Running down onto the floor.

Wasabi

Isaiah, on eating sushi:

“If you get too much wasabi, it’s like
A volcano exploding
In your nasal cavity!”

I glanced around Whole Foods
To see if anyone else had heard
This display of vocabulary dexterity.

Re-Entry

Back well after dark,
Phil went first thing next morn to view his environs.
He found all land and animals well.

As he left the quiet barn,
He wondered, randomly, if the freezer was working.
It was not.

Accidentally unplugged,
All meat thawed. Not spoiled.
The shape of my day changed.

I cooked and shredded all roasts.
The steaks and ground beef we refroze.
And we rejoice for the provision of prompting.

And some say there's no God.

Light

The sunrise is a gift.
Intensifying yellows and pinks,
Culminating in the sight of our star.

And I thought, as we all turned back to our cars,
Ready to avoid the wind and get home
For breakfast or a nap,

How easy to forget that the day
Is also a gift,
As the grey of twilight becomes the colors of dawn.

Undoubtedly a man born blind
Would appreciate the sunrise.
But I suspect he would appreciate
The persistent colors of day more.

Sun's Rise

I have seen the sun rise several times in my life,
And always I am surprised by how quickly
The light leaps up,
From line to ball,
So bright as to be quickly painful.

Astonished also, my father wondered if that is actually
The sun’s pace across the sky: how can it leap up so fast?

Sunrise on Cadillac Mountain

Incredibly, we know where
Sunlight strikes the continental United States
First.

From March to October 6, northern Maine sees these rays,
But from October 7 to March,
The highest mountain on the North Atlantic seaboard—
Though, at 1530 feet, no more than a hill to those from the
Blue Ridge, let alone the Rockies—
For these months, the sunlight hits
Cadillac Mountain
First.

We got up early October 7, the intrepid nine, ready to see
The first light to fall on our nation.
And though we watched the sky lightening in the east
Before we left our driveway,
And though the sky was a pastel pink as we turned
Away from the coast,
By the time we reached the summit,
And felt the biting wind,
We had no regret that we were not earlier,
Hoping only to survive the next half hour or so.

It was beautiful.
Bar Island below.
And the Porcupine Islands,
Sheep, Burnt, Long, Bald.
The lighthouse at Egg Rock, flashing red.
The small smuggler’s island, now flush with seaglass.
All these spots on Frenchman Bay we now knew and loved,
As we looked out toward the cold waters of the Bay of Maine.

And the grey faded and the pink intensified.
The imperceptible horizon became clear
As the brightening gradually focused.

The rays of the sun lit the clouds above,
And still the sky brightened,
The colors intensified, until

Suddenly

What was simply bright transitioned
To a line of sun,
And the line rapidly thickened.

Garbage Can Lid

When Grandpa took out the trash,
The lid fell off as he went out the door.
Upset, Caleb tried to bring it to him,
But it was dark and cold and I stopped him.
And so he stood, waiting for Grandpa’s return.

After some minutes, he realized he was thirsty,
And when Grandpa returned, mid-swallow,
He ran to him and lifted the lid,
Eager to contribute, wanting to serve,
In whatever way a newly-two can do.

The Art Museum

I have a son who draws for hours every day.
His cartoons pour out of him.
Yet, when faced with the option of art museum or movie,
He would probably have opted for movie.
Except that I’ve been waiting to take him to a museum for years,
So to a museum we went.

And I had the baby in a carrier, so we couldn’t stay long,
Admiring (or not) the works of Maine artists,
The Rodin sculptures and the mobile by Calder,
The pots by Picasso and the paintings by Renoir.
I love art history, and I can talk my way through a museum.

A trumpet flower, three feet long,
Made, improbably, of enormous warped nails.
“What does this make you think of, son?”
“A whirlwind.”

A painting that looked something like a wire mesh,
With sections distorted by grabbing, as mesh does.
“Look at this closely—that’s one of the pleasures of a museum.
Son, see how the artist painted the canvas with a blue wash,
Then painstakingly painted each square or warped shape white?”
“Okay, I guess that’s pretty cool.”

A painted portrait of two children.
On the next wall, a photorealism painting of a room.
“I realize you walked by this quickly, but this is actually not a photograph.
This is a painting.”
The alacrity of attention then: the right response.

Sons from Afar

Six of the Tillerman Cycle I had read.
This last, a Christmas present two years back,
I had skimmed, and found indifferent,
And put on the shelf of “someday, maybe” books.

But vacation is not a good time for pretentious reading,
So I grabbed this book and found myself
So entirely engrossed, I hardly wanted to pull away
And interact with my beloved family.

The luminous title
The beauty of the writing
The hunt for the deadbeat dad
The subtle and pervasive character development

Except, there was nothing he could do.
Except, of course, there was.

You can make a choice to change.
Restoration is possible.

Maine

The colors had not changed in earnest,
But the last day, we rounded a corner
And came across the vista of a lake,
One I had seen before, only a few days prior.

But now the swath of scarlet,
Reflected on placid water of the beaver pond,
Was so striking,
My heart ached with its beauty
And tears rose,
Unbidden.

A Mystery

I have been wondering how to write a book,
Wishing for a plot.
Poems flow out without forethought,
Often clarifying my ideas as I write.

I woke early one morning
To broken glass covering the floor and my bed.
Strangely, it was not sharp shards, but tempered glass.
Where had it come from?

I went to turn on the kitchen lights,
But nothing happened.
This terrified me.
Then I woke up for real.

That would make a good mystery:
A broken windshield in the bedroom,
Malfunctioning lights …
But after such a promising beginning,

Nothing further suggests itself.

Provision

When Phil left to drive to the abattoir,
He had a bad feeling.
Shortly after he left, the boys and I prayed.
We had prayed at breakfast. We prayed again.

Before Phil left our road,
The side mirror fell out and shattered.
That was his only way to see behind,
As the rearview mirror is useless with the trailer.

He found an old rearview mirror
Among the detritus in the truck,
And a single piece of baling wire, and two zip-ties.
He tied this makeshift mirror on, so he would have some mirror behind.

It rained all the way up, but the cows were delivered.
On the way home, the engine for the windshield wipers
Suddenly exploded,
At the same time the cloudburst renewed its fury.

Large, unwieldy dually without power steering,
Towing a large cattle trailer,
On a busy road with no shoulder,
In an unknown part of town.

Already stressful. Now, literally, zero visibility.
I can only imagine the terror of that moment.
We stand amazed that he didn’t die.
Once safely parked, he did call me to come and get him.

So I drove the hour and a half to find him,
Through torrential rains,
Phone about to die,
Not entirely sure where I was going.

I expected we would leave the truck and trailer,
And return again tomorrow.
Except rain is forecasted for the foreseeable future.
A temporary break in the rainfall allowed us to caravan slowly home.

So was our prayer answered? Yes.
He was safe.
The cows reached their destination.
And apart from a three hour stress, we are all unscathed.

Loading Animals

Our chute is makeshift: a few cattle panels and gates,
Cobbled together with rope and baling wire.

I have post-traumatic stress about the time
We tried to load the pig,
And we had constrained it and constrained it until it seemed like
There was nowhere else for it to go but in the trailer
When it stuck its nose under the fence I was
Standing on
And escaped.

So today when the three cows came towards the trailer
And turned around in a tight space,
I knew I was the weak link.
Stressed animals, their horns inches away,
Desperately contorting to turn around,
To escape this strange confinement
And to avoid the dark cave at the end.

Would this end in the animals running free?
Quite possibly.

Did I mention it was raining?

We four humans stood in the rain, dripping, stressed,
As we tried again and again to get the third animal in the trailer.

Finally we gave up for another day,
And were thankful for the two we had loaded successfully.

Model Grief

Our friend came to visit, now a month into grief.
He loved his wife. He misses her.

Yet he is still so entirely himself,
Still so matter-of-fact,

Yet overlaid with a new compassion,
With a penetrating vision of the task God has before him,

It gives me hope that the grief I have hoped was possible
Is actually attainable.

“We do not grieve as others who have no hope.”
I have seen this modeled.

An Assassin's Response

At thirteen, girls can be unpredictable.
Those nicknamed “assassin,” perhaps more so.

Her father feared the response
When the time came to tell that her mother was gone.

Ecstatically: “Mommy is with Jesus now!”
Then: weeping.

It was all that a parent could hope for.
Thanks be to God.

Perfect Children

Years ago, I heard a phrase:
“If you’re not a perfect parent,
But you want perfect children….”

I think of that statement now with horror.
What kind of parent demands perfection of their children?
What crushing religious system would offer that expectation?

Connections

I do not conjure up dates and times on my own.
But somehow, I will think,
“I should check the score”
And it happens to be the final eight seconds when the team wins.

Or I will think,
“Was this around the time that a CD was released?”
And I will go back to find that, yes,
My future friend did release a CD on this date, and I was there.

Or I will think,
“What was I doing a week ago this week?”
And the calendar will show the visitors who came,
And so I remember an anniversary or a trauma.

I think God makes these connections for me,
As a way to remind me that I am connected with my community.

Orchard

I go to see my family this Friday.
It will be a year to the day after my friend came to visit,
When she brought me an expensive book of Cezanne paintings
That had belonged to her mother,
Elegantly wrapped.

She came from a doctor’s appointment,
And we sat in the orchard in the
Beautiful light
Of an afternoon in early fall,
And we spoke of prayer and faith and healing.

That was the first and only time my friend came
To the farm, just to visit me.

As I go to see my family,
I will be mindful that each visit is a gift.

There is no guarantee of another.

On Playing Beethoven (Almost) Perfectly

Rather than working my way gradually up to the classics,
I spent months laboring over the four pages of notes
In the first movement of “Moonlight Sonata.”
When I got it tolerably well, I stopped for a year.

Lately, I have returned to that piece,
Playing it once or twice a day, wrestling through some sections,
Always quite imperfectly, until yesterday,
When I played it all through with only one wrong chord.

There is peace that comes over me.
Not in the beginning, when the jitters of supposed audience
Interfere with my absorption,
But further on,

When the beauty of the music envelops me.
I gasp daily at the glory Beethoven proffers.

Commandant

After Corrie spoke of God’s forgiveness,
The former S.S. officer came to greet her.

“It is so wonderful that God forgives our sins,”
And he stretched his hand for her to shake.

She knew him. He had leered at the prisoners
As they walked before him, naked and powerless.

And Corrie could not lift her hand to his.
“Help me, God, to live my message.”

A jolt of electricity flowed through her arm,
And she took his hand with forgiveness and joy.

“It is indeed wonderful to know
That God forgives our sins.”

Profound

I read that rather than running our own race,
We look at others, and fall prey to

Comparing
Competing
Coveting.

Leave Me Alone!

The boys get home from judo
Late. Sweaty and tired,
They eat supper and head to bed.

Tonight, a frustrated Abraham
Was overheard telling Caleb
Repeatedly,

“Leave me alone!”
And when Phil investigated,
He heard this complaint:

Caleb keeps coming in
And turning off the CD.
And when I stand up to turn it back on,
He climbs into my bed!

Such are the difficulties
Of being a beloved older brother.

It's Nothing to Do with Me

Skimming an “atmospheric” book
Leaves little more than a general impression.

Overall, I don’t enjoy Natalie Babbitt’s work,
Finding a core of meanness I dislike,

But in A Search for Delicious,
The kingdom approaches civil war,

Fighting about the definition of what is truly
Delicious. And the longer-lived—

The forest spirit and the underearth dwellers
And the mermaid—

Don’t care.
“It’s nothing to do with me.”

Our hero Gaylen, adopted and young, has to consider this position.
Is the foolishness of men worth risking his life?

Is his community, such as it is,
Anything to do with him?

How beautiful, that even as this temptation
Appears and reappears,

That he is happening upon the people and things he needs
To gain the help that will save all.

Twelve years down the road,
His life is satisfying and lovely.

If you are human, pursue the right.
It is everything to do with you.

The message comes through clearly:
You are your brother’s keeper.

Catalogs

One of the fun things I do for work
Is go through dozens of catalogs,
Looking for promising books to review.

It shocks me yet how many are not promising.

Sometimes there are books that I wonder about,
Ones that, as I’m racing through dozens of horrors,
Maybe warrant a second look, with fresh perspective.
I pull those pages aside “for later,”
Until I gradually accumulate
An overwhelming folder of papers that are
Almost promising.

I finally figured out how to deal with them.
I take five sheets out at a time,
Look over the ten sides carefully,
Discarding or keeping.
Then I make a mark to show that I have looked
At those ten or fifty titles.

This way, I know that I am making progress,
Even if the fat folder does not appear to change.

I can do this for an hour before my
Decision-making capacity
Freezes

And I need to take a break.

Syrophenician

Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.

Jesus was, I think,
Very tired.

Thronged wherever he went,
Opposed by those one would expect to be his friends,
He went, at last, into a foreign land …

But he could not be hid.

During his life, many educated men
Ask many difficult questions.

Jesus always comes out the victor.

Here is a Greek,
A woman,
Who goes to this foreigner
And takes the insult he gives
Without objection
If but her daughter could be healed.

Could there be a greater contrast?
The Jewish men, powerful and strong,
Plot to kill Jesus after he insults them.

The woman, foreign, powerless,
Receives whatever analogy he offers,
If he will but heal her girl.

She leaves, victorious.

Brilliant Marketing

We have an Audible account
Because the boys are in the car
Three hours a week.
They’ll get through the entire
Lord of the Rings trilogy
In a few months.

Phil realized the opportunity then:
He could listen to a book while he worked!
He is outside, alone, a lot,
Moving cows, working in the barn, mowing.
I find it hard to get his attention now around the house:
Earbuds in all the time, listening.

But none of this affected me.
If I’m in the car alone, I pray or praise.
If I’m in the house doing dishes, I decompress.
I don’t voluntarily fill my mental space with noise.

And then …

Audible ran a sale: five bucks a book.
Most of their options were ridiculous,
But I scanned the titles anyway, curious.
Cry, the Beloved Country,
One of my all time favorites …
I could listen to that during dishes, and be happy.

And then …

Mansfield Park.
I have read this before,
But remember none of it, so my beautiful volume
Sits in storage, untouched,
Waiting for a day of more free time.

This I listen to during dishes,
Rejoicing in the beautiful language,
The interesting plot in miniature,
The newness and unexpectedness.

This objectively makes my life better.

Kombucha

When the batch Phil never liked finally busted,
I brewed anew.

Effervescent bubbles and delicious,
Refreshing drink.

Sickness

We have had sick people miss church
Four out of five weeks.

This seems statistically improbable:
There aren’t that many of us.

I have heard Christians suggest
That we fight against the dark forces.

I am not sure that this is the way of peace.
What does it mean to resist the devil?

Does it mean casting him out?
Or does it mean worshipping God, no matter what happens?

Because I have seen that,
No matter who is sick, and what they are missing,

Things work themselves out.
Is this not also a provision?

In Which the Dalai Lama Proves to Be an Introvert

When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new.

Clearly, the Dalai Lama has never needed
To externally process.

Sometimes I discover something new
As I’m talking about it.

Shopping Regret

I bought a rain jacket because I felt beautiful in it.
How could this be?

I still don’t know.
Rain jackets aren’t known for their stylish cut.

Weeks later, I saw a rain jacket at Costco
For one-seventh what I paid. (And mine was on sale.)

I don’t like shopping much,
Because even if I love what I buy, I still feel regret.

Betrayal

Two books by an author
I deeply appreciated:
Creative, interesting, kind.

Two more
I deeply enjoyed:
Books to finish and go about the day with a smile.

Then I hit a stretch of four by the author that left me
Feeling eviscerated
And betrayed:

Nasty characters doing nasty things,
Thinking nasty thoughts and
Living petty lives.

Why would anyone voluntarily go to the library
And be subjected to such an assault?

Dry

I’ve been working so hard lately,
The idea of writing about my life or thoughts or emotions
Seemed absurd.

I find it challenging to know
Where to begin.

Shalom

We expected the cows would run away.
Stressful loading is all we’ve seen.

So when, at the end of a long morning,
The two cows voluntarily went into the trailer

Without direction or force or people close by,
I cannot think of that except as a miracle,

An example of the shalom I seek,
Where man and beast dwell together in peaceful mutual aid.

Drama Director

A commentary suggests
That pastors, teachers,
Are the drama directors

Helping the cast understand their roles,
And play their roles well.
I can see this. I like it.

Coherence

On my favorite Sundays,
The meeting has unplanned coherence.

Phil read something by a friend in Kentucky today
That directly echoed a book I read yesterday
That related to what Mike was thinking about this week
While Sarah was living it
And that Andrew’s friend talked about this morning.

These connections remind me that
The Holy Spirit is at work
In me
In us.

A Gift

I try not to be tied to numbers.
If we have three people for dinner,
We share our lives with those three,
And leave satisfied.

So it surprised me that, immediately before
We arrived at our destination,
I thought, I would like someone new tonight.

And, when I walked in,
There she was!

Sickness

Three times in four weeks now,
The person we expected would address us
Has been, at the last minute,
Sick.

Statistically, this seems improbable.

We can spot resistance when we see it.

Observed

A friend said,
People confessed their biggest secrets
Anonymously, online.
I read through this list of brokenness—
Incest, molestation, divorce, adultery,
On and on—

And I have never seen more clearly
The divide between what it is to walk in darkness
And walk in light.

The only hope for the world is Jesus.