Poetry for Today

Finding meaning in the mess

A single glance at the room

Reveals a tepid mess:

Love unencumbered by order

Stray scissors tell a story

Of creating a compass without a point:

Call it a directional, perhaps

(that language is directly from Briggs)

A hair clip and candy wrapper,

An empty bottle of water:

Life flowing from every corner

This room is no mess,

Save for the way all love is

Given and received in plenty,

Strewn about with joy

Finding its place in a rhythm

So perfectly disordered

It at once feels right

And clean and good

Like I imagined it could

To bring life into this world

Is to enter the tepid mess

And wait for the days that shine

Thirty-Three

Thirty-three is not old enough

to know the depths of life, I often hear

As my scars stare back in the mirror

True I do not know it all, Do you?

I know the pain of child new

The searing memory of cancer removed,

Veins collapsed and nerves disturbed,

The hurt of a single word.

I know the way my heart breaks

With news of loved one dying

I know the tearing of my soul

With child inconsolably crying.

What if we exposed these scars,

The ones we each bear

For the threads of healing they may contain?

These are mine, what might you share?

I do not know all of life’s pain,

And thank God for that too.

What I do know need not be felt in vain.

Yours neither, as we journey on our way

The story of our scars meets the hands and feet

Of one who bears all pain, suffering and defeat

(he too was thirty-three)

Only to rise again so we might too

In the eternal story of life made new.

Newsfeed

I’m filled with tears today

The weight of change

Contrasted by the way

new efforts of care await

those of us who want to create

good alongside God

In my newsfeed today

I cried at the way

people clap from their balcony

Honoring neighbors who keep

Communities safe for those in need.

In my newsfeed today

I laughed at the sheer

Magnitude of joy in mere

Household moments that capture

The chaos and good cheer.

In my newsfeed today

I pause and give thanks

For the way you make

Life better for me, for we

Are in it together, may it always be.

My newsfeed today is God smiling

What a sweet sight indeed!