Tag Archives: Poems

Day 40 – Poetry for Lent

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Hope Soars

Hard to believe the sun still shines
with you sealed in a tomb
people go about their business
dawn comes and the world turns
sending the sun sliding down 
past the horizon
And it all seems wrong.

Hopelessness is a heavy weight
we've carried these last couple days
when little over a week ago
we followed you in
a triumphal entry
a celebration of the Messiah
Where did it go wrong?

Morning comes early
for sleepless sleepers
on this third day
the last task waits
the anointing of His body
a bittersweet final goodbye
but the stone rolled away  
signals something wrong.

Why do you look for the living
among the dead, proclaim
men who gleam like lightning
He is not here for
He has risen!
And what was wrong
becomes right

Hope soars

Day 38 – Poetry for Lent

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What A Poem Couldn’t Capture

I tried to write a poem  
but words couldn't capture
a friendship that runs through
my life, spills over the edges
into the cracks
day into night
work into weekend
winter into summer
day into month into years.
A poem couldn't contain
the laughter echoing from 
an oil change station
 it couldn't soak up the 
funeral home tears, couldn't color
disappointments and joys in job, 
family, relationships, or in ourselves. 
A little thing like a poem couldn't begin
to describe the mooring strength
of a friendship that's always there--
a phone call, visit, text away.
How could a poem demonstrate
that safe harbor relief found in 
a friendship where pretense isn't necessary; 
where there's no judgement for being 
the leaky rowboat instead of 
the sleek private yacht?
Nope, no way could a poem
display how friendship strings light and 
dark moments together into a 
rich and lustrous life.

Day 33 – Poetry for Lent

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For April is Poetry Month, I’m offering students the opportunity to create I Spy poems. So tonight I’m simply playing with I Spy examples. 

I spy a dollar, a princess and 2 plastic eggs
a soldier, an owl, a beast with 8 legs.

Beware of the ninja, a cockroach, a pretty red frog
a dinosaur, 2 bottle caps, and a shaggy black dog. 




Day 22 – Poetry for Lent

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Daffodils

It would be easier
 to sleep
 blanket of snow
 tucked over your head
 dreaming of sunny 
 spring days
 
It is so difficult
 to bloom
 to turn your face up and 
 greet the new day
 when it is cold 
 and lonely
 
But you, brave daffodil
 brighten everyone’s winter
 days just by being
 and winter will not
 last forever
 
One day the sun 
 will kiss you
 awake
 and you will trumpet
 your joy to the world

Day 18 – Poetry for Lent

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Ruth

I would not leave
though she told me,
Go back, find rest
a husband
a home.

I could not leave
for she was 
a mother to me
her people, my family
her home, my home.

I dared not leave, for
how would she manage
alone and destitute
hands veined blue
legs morning shaky?

And so I followed 
that I might be 
her hands young and strong
her legs spry in the morning
sturdy in the evening
her family in the new land
her daughter
Ruth.

Day 10 – Poetry for Lent

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Harvest

Devastated to hear about the shootings in New Zealand this morning. This poem was one I had written after the shootings in Las Vegas. I was playing with form because I wanted to paint a visual to go with it as well. Trees always remind me of life and connectedness. I pulled it out and played with it a bit here. Still haven’t gotten very far on the painting….


 
Did you
 feel powerful
 for those minutes,
 framed in that window
 far above the ground
 —far below heaven?
 Did the music sound distant,
 the joy and excitement
 way beneath you?
 When you sowed your terror,
 did you even look down
 to see the crop you planted?
 Chaos
 Panic
 Fear
 Injury
 Death

 Scattered bullets, mistaken fireworks, 
spurred a stampede in that country music crowd. 
 But everyday heroes rounded up the wounded, body-sheltered injured, 
prayed over the dead, and carried the bleeding over fences, 
across runways, behind cars, and under balconies. 
 First responders, nurses, doctors, friends, and strangers 
 jumped those gaps between life and death.

 Did you see that, Terrorist?
 Did you see the hope and help that flowered 
despite the chaos you’d sown?
 Or did you stare into that dark barrel 
before reaping your own deathly harvest?

Do we see
 that what we plant
 we must prepare to harvest?

Day 5 – Poetry for Lent

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Night Rain

I love listening to the sound of rain when I’m in bed. It raises a sense of nostalgia, a feeling of melancholy–but not in a bad way.

The night saturates
 the land
 Dark fat drops
 plink and plonk
 before settling into 
 a steady drumming
 beating a rhythm
 the lyrics full of 
 longing, burgeoning
 with desire and
 melancholy
 the notes rise
 like trout to a
 fly floated down a
 dark slick of water
 just there and then
 swallowed.

Day 2 – Poetry for Lent

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This poem was actually started some time ago. We’d had a sermon or two on Daniel and his friends, and I had jotted a few lines at the time wondering (like I do with most survival stories) whether I would have been able to do what they did. Would I –say in a school shooting situation–be able to stand up for what I believed if it meant death? Of course, whenever I think this, I quickly throw in a “Please God, let me never have to find out.”

But there are all those little moments–standing up to bullies, racists, haters of any sort–or even harder, those who profess to believe the same things I do. Sure, maybe it only involves anger, social disgrace, ostracism–but do I stand up? Small things build, so where do I draw the line? What do I stand for?

Would I, Could I, Should I?

Would I stand up 
when all else bowed
legs strong, backbone straight
furnace flames licking heels and thighs?
And when challenged on that upright pose
would I collapse
knees buckling like
a mighty oak
felled with nothing but an axe?

Could I kneel down
when law denied
bow my head and pray to God
while lions roared in nearby den?
Or would I hide my godly pose,
afraid discovery's fangs 
might rip and shred 
my heart and soul
until I'm nothing, almost dead?

I confess,
I hope I never know.

But should I encounter
no furnace flames or lions' den
but merely tests within, without 
and trials in my daily way
Remind me then, oh Holy One
to whom I owe my everything
of Daniel and his mighty friends.
Though knees may quake
and fear course wild through my veins
place Your hand on me
and still my mouth
  if that will close the lion's maw,
or help me speak
  to put out hatred's fiercest flame
for I am Yours
  though small and weak.