Take down your flag. The rain is falling. The gentle drops that wash away the past Are falling all around us, falling fast, Eroding all the paths that led before. . Take down your flag. The seams are wearing. The weakened threads of a forgotten age Have failed to stop time’s turning page. They let … Continue reading The Sun is Setting
My life has a limp and I shuffle along— swift and graceful as a turtle. Other lives have limbs built for speed and run majestically like cheetahs. My heart loathes to lose, but my head is in the game— I will limp on for You, and when I do, I only seem to lose.
The mask is off— the words hailed as a gentleman’s came from the face of a killer so hardened—or softened— by evil that he can sit down to eat with treachery— and not recognize the horror he has welcomed in our name. . The night is black, the skies are clear, and our hands are … Continue reading Sackcloth and Ashes
They gather— like the sound of laughter at a party or black-cloaked mourners at a graveside or storm clouds thundering in. They move— like an eagle mounting the wind, or a turtle shrinking back into his shell, or a hiker lost in the wilderness. They read the signs— like a fortune teller or a political … Continue reading Feelings
Once upon a time, a hero in his storybook, climbing up a castle wall with a wild and burly look, named himself the author of his fate. Once upon a wall, the paint upon the canvas, frozen in a summer sunset, admired, as tree and grass, the perfect picture he had made. Once upon a … Continue reading Tales of Arrogance
Oh Lord, I am afraid of the eyes— all of the eyes— the dark, dark eyes that find me. They bind me at a look— a single look— a long, attentive look— and, Oh, LORD, I am afraid. One glance my way, and I fall— I trip and fall— I whither like a leaf and … Continue reading Prayer of the Timid
We are fragile like the flowers, our hours sown with grief. Is it life—or a thief—that makes us and takes us, petal by petal to the wind? Ever closer to the end of all that ever almost was. We fade because of our inheritance— our parents left us death, and every breath, cut off from … Continue reading Life through Death
For my friend, Frances, on her first birthday with Jesus Left alone with your memory— the fading image, the distant voice are not the wounds I thought they’d be for we are not so very far apart— Heaven has you, and I have Heaven in my heart.
All my days bear Your footprints. You have gone before me faithfully. Before I knew Your name, You gave me a heart, and You have kept it beating faithfully. You did not let me live 5 years without the miracle of Your life joined to mine faithfully. My sin ran deep; Your love ran deeper. … Continue reading Faithfully
I was the girl in black, withering all away, the dreamer on the rack, beaten down with gray, the days were years, the years were centuries waiting for this day. All the yesterdays— those pale and hollow caves— all the tossing, turning ways of lying in the graves— the thirsts were flames, the flames were … Continue reading Alive
Gratefully His 