Two Poems

His Will:

My pen, a pilot, sharp nibbed without sail

awash in ink

splatters the contours of my white empty tablet.

The blotches drifting across hollowed out seasons,

come to their end

with my choosing.

Meaning belongs to Your will;

what You begin You bring to an end

tying all my useless metaphors

into Your bundle of grace.

-

Grace:

My voice this morning

clashed against eternal things,

yet, all day long my hands touched everlasting love.

I brushed the cheek of sleeping innocence:

before she woke I knew the child

had buried hurt and hate.

Suspended peace,

redemption slept

beneath a quilt

and grace.

I cleaned and cleared neglected trash,

replenished dying roses here and there,

whose thorns were sharper than the day before.

Monotonous work,

redemptive pain

lay deep their image on my task, and crushed,

the smell of flowers everywhere.

I kneaded bread all pungent with its yeasty life.

It gave and moved beneath my hand,

became elastic,

knew my will,

and gave transcendence to the day.

I move beneath your hand.

Within Your will I grow,

alive and fragrant are all Your saints,

muting words I clasp eternal things,

letting my hands sign out the everlasting love.

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life." (2 Cor 2:14-16)