Posts for June 10, 2026 (page 2)

Some days God’s mercy looks like a candle in the darkness, the wick unevenly placed within the wax so that a wall of unburnt wax sits wedged between flame and ceramic, bought for too high a price to be so defective, and some days his mercy is staring at this candlelight to ignore the burning of your bones that you are so scared are turning older and older by the second, and some days His mercy shines through the darkness of your bedroom and illuminates your memories of only a few hours before, your lover driving with one hand and holding yours with the other, his eyes glossed over by the sunset and the road ahead trying to decipher the words to a Fleetwood Mac song, and sometimes Gods mercy is a weight on your chest that refuses to leave at night as you write the poem like an afterthought or a prayer that you just want to get something out of, and sometimes His mercy is just to witness and record and call it your own art.

If you could never speak again 
No voice to utter the words 
How could you show them love? 
Would you keep a tidy home? 
Bake your promises into homemade pies? 
Stitch a handmade quilt to keep them warm? 
Point out every beautiful sunset for them to see? 
Turn up the radio and dance around the kitchen?
So their heart will be reminded of the melody? 
Love is but a simple word, but a powerful verb
Full of  endless possibilities to be explored 
When silence holds steadfast in the heart 
With a soft glance and hand held to claims 
True endearment can and will beat the odds 

Please stop trying to save my soul.

I like it filthy and sinful.

I don’t want it laundered in blood.

I sleep in on Sundays.

I pray to a god of love and acceptance

that you would hate.

I find God in places

you would never think to look.

If Heaven is full of people like you,

I don’t want to go there.

Save me from your salvation.

There are days I am certain the sad will get me:

When the morning mist feels like cloying embrace
Instead of awesome softening

When blurred margins feel like bleary eyes
Instead of relief from reality’s jagged edge

When even the mud has an inordinate gravity
Ready to pull me under at the slightest misstep

I know you are here
I know you are with me
But the swamp is in my soul

If I go under
Do not let me take you down with me

oh, tiny green frogs, 
on waxy lily launch pads
choral resonance

born fish dance like glass
gargle and spit against the current.
bring breath, big belly blue
air all out and about
wake then throb, open through to the stars
their rhythm must listen
like the ocean.

like scraping out a vessel for the last serving
then scrubbing it clean to use again
motherhood empties us

we give of ourselves 
and try to forgive ourselves
for not knowing 
        when to let the them cry 
            or fall
            or go
while figuring out our lives, too

and now, we might be able to recognize different cries,
        but we are still figuring out our lives
        and unsure of the letting go,
and we hope
         that any hurts were the kind that helped them grow,
and we hope
        that they have forgotten our anger,
and, oh, how we hope
        that they can forgive us
        as we continue to forgive ourselves

always it has been
the honey-milk smell of their crowns
and their worth to us more than many sparrows
miraculously filling us again

First to go was the lake house.
Chase Lake sunrises and sunsets,
summer feasts of grilled chicken
and sweet corn devoured 

on the screened in porch. Then
it was Mom, who couldn’t breathe,
couldn’t eat. She left a legacy 
of impossibility upon her passing.

Brother brought sacrificed fowl,
fish and venison to fill the  empty hole 
The lake we pulled sunnies, trout 
out of would never again be enough.

Red tile and green vine

Tin watering can, the slow art

of cultivation. A home 

of peculiarities. Wooden figurines

Creations. The smell of

last night’s soup lingers

when it’s already been eaten.

The prayer bowl, the resonance

the space between every second

all felt, all home here.

the realization that
worlds away
beyond sound
beyond eyes
others feel the same as we all
needs realized
fully