The Waning Day

The Waning Day

 ^(“He will take away death for all time. The Lord God will dry tears from all faces.” Isaiah 25:8a)

What will we become after we have waited for
the setting of the sun? How shall we meet the long
shadows of the waning day? Time sped up while
we were busy carrying the hours on our backs.
We would rather not walk in the rain.

We took the time in parcels, portions meant to
be divided at a moment’s notice. We wrote the
return address in red and green to be satisfied
it would be seen. We were hedging our bets and
circling zip codes and licking envelopes stamped
with names we thought we remembered.

You must forgive me but I’m trying to capture
as much radiance as I can
before the lights go out and the air turns brief.
We wanted to share the relief that the coming day
was certain to bring.

Grief can make you feel invisible. Grief can
continue long past the due date other have
scribbled for you. Grief is silence in a world
that seems to have nothing to say and says it
from the start of every day.

But there is a love that is stronger than death,
a light brighter than a cloudless noon,
a hand wipes the tears and wounds away.
Greif and hope can exist in a single heart,
learning to cope with loss and future at once.

The door is open, the latch is unlocked,
The moments will come; days will last
from circle to circle and round and down,
the tears will be dried and the songs will

Remind us that every sunset had its day.

See Without Trying

 

See Without Trying

(“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of a messenger who proclaims peace, who brings good news, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God rules!’” Isaiah 52:7)

There were motives that we all thought were plain to see,
plans that stood upon pillars driven deep into bedrock.
There were methods we thought were acceptable to all,
frameworks that were familiar like facets on a diamond.

How could we have missed it,
how could we be mistaken about
something we were so sure of,
something about which there was no doubt?

And yet the time came for hand-me-downs to be
tossed aside
as the manufactured doctrines they were.
And the day blazed with sounds like the sun
that warmed the necks of everyone.

And the invisible was what we had missed,
we insisted everyone salute the flag
we ran up our own poles. While it flapped in the wind
we became deaf to the silence that is heard by everyone.

Executions are not cause for applause,
battlefield victories are not the inspiration for
the new song
that sings of level roads and ditches filled with
the new rain
that beautifies the desert and makes the olive branches
bloom.

How can we rest until everyone is at rest?
How can we assume that we are the ones
chosen to author the world? Better than this,
and better yet,
let our feet find the warm earth again,
the beach at setting sun,
and the long reach of unarmed proclamations.
And let us see without trying
that our morning is slumber for
half the points upon the eternal circle;
the eternal journey, one tiny tittle of time.