Lantern-Hearted Girl

Old glass lantern, beveled, bright

Once a jewel blazing

Through shadow and frost

A warm and welcome sight

Since benighted, cracked with shame,

Clouded from selfish smoke,

Wracked with rattling pains—

If I cast it in the ocean

to grind within the surf

Will it crumble?
If I leave it to scorching sunlight

pierced by noonday rays

Will it burst?

Or will the water flow like justice

Scrubbing off the grime,

The glass re-fuse by 

Faithfulness stretching from the skies?

Can my lantern glow once more

And pulse with shimmering life

Though it has been neglected

To dust instead of light?

with props to 2 Corinthians 4, Florence + the Machine, Langston Hughes, Third Day, and “Once Upon a Time”

Fish Out of the Sea

arcs of white water, light

falls of stone up-grown,

solemn in memoriam

silently observing

the water’s rushing, murmuring

the quiet and the whispering:

through tapping feet and laughter,

solitary sitters, troops of groups,

couples camped, and childish patters

—tonight there’s a mere few

then two

the white the light the stone the whispers

beneath the wounded moon

silver surfing patina swells,

caps of white, water, light

Miracles

You walked me ‘cross the water

You made the lions purr

You spoke and with a shimmer

The sun infused the dingy world

The trees flashed winning mouths of green

The still lake blinked and shone

But none these wonders have I seen

Though looked and walked and lived

The real miracle is

Amidst the beauty, gifts, the grace

I’ve festered something else

The opposite of worthy, praise—

sordid fears and self

And say now as John Donne:

Rip me up and root me out and make me feel
Yourself

Construction Site

the breeze blew long

heightening my hairs

hallowing, harrowing, harbinging

But I stood tall

and long

And when it began to rain

to rain

I built my walls

I built my roof

And I stood tall

and long

and long

Until it began to pound

(in my head)

to crack

(in my heart)

And I cowered and shook

and shook

and shook

Behind walls growing thicker

like fingernails left too long

like layers of moss upon moss

too strong for

the sounding, the pounding, the hounding

And when the thunder ceased

it ceased

(over or merely muffled?)

I stayed within

calming

and preening

And I stood tall

and long

But the sun burned hot

and loud

without me

And I stood tall

and long

and long

And never knew—

within my very crevice

beyond my walls and halls and moss and shade

something else grew, too,

and taller

and longer

and stronger—

just beyond my walls