Seedling
This tender stem
Pushed up through scorched earth
Just as the stars were falling.
Yearning sunward
Flayed by solar wind
It unfurled a tiny leaf to depths of space
And exploded a perfect diminutive flower
In exalted realms of light.
My Prison
It began with ancestral stones
firmly set –
Eons of collective guilt had
built a prison for The Chosen.
A firm foundation
upon which
censure and men’s advances
solidified, kept the hurt out
and me in.
Cloistered with my injuries,
I could contemplate my faith.
Self-denial a sacrament –
to suffer some
with the world’s oppressed – yes.
There’s so much guilt in being free –
Open, choosing to fly,
choosing to dance.
It was the window
that was my prison’s undoing:
God’s grace shining in
found me in a corner.
Friends passing by reached in
and touched me.
I heard (somewhere, laughing)
guiltless voices,
reveling in choices, free to soar.
I took a step – so tentative – and found
just beyond the window
. . . the door.
Masada
Color dawns in the desert:
A sun-rose rises in the sand.
It reaches to caress the spring,
Then wilts into the land.
Its life too brief for sharing,
Its blooms by hot wind shaken,
It stood and shone and faded…
Never touched, and never taken.
And my life turns from fleeting spring
To face the scorching sun.
I ride the pinnacle of faith
Briefly… then it’s done.
The Romans mount the very wall —
The firmament is shaken!
And like the sun-rose I will die…
Never touched, and never taken.
Note: These poems are copyrighted.
