Lullaby

This time, I’ll let you sing me to sleep
With stories of love that I cannot contain
A runaway bride and the King who gave all
A beautiful creation redeemed from its fall

This time, I’ll let your hands hold my dreams
Out of the shadows and into the light
Body and bread and blood that is wine
Perfect Lamb killed to breathe me to life

This time, I’ll close my eyes, feel you breathe
Healing slowly from shadows that weave
Fraught through with light and promise of grace
And drift off to rest held close to your heart

This time, I’ll wake to your world of light
Teasing sunrays that pull me alive
Dancing your smile in every path where I go
All this and more; let it be so.

[Somewhere in the combination of Zephaniah 3:17 (The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;/he will rejoice over you with gladness;/he will quiet you by his love;/he will exult over you with loud singing) and a friend singing Borning Cry as I fell asleep (of which the line “I rejoiced the day you were baptized/to see your life unfold” sank into my mind until the next day, and I rejoiced anew in being a covenant child) and all the mornings when I sleepily went down the stairs of my dorm, and woke up in the realization that it was SUNSHINE pouring in the wide windows, and the times I have drifted into an odd restful prayer/picture/story listening to She Must and Shall Go Free on quiet Sunday afternoons… this poem came around.]

Stone Scraped

Here I am! I shouted, child still confident
Unable to see the cracks lacing my soul
Ignorant of my own need to be made whole

And you looked steadily at me
Unblinking despite certain knowledge of pain
Pulling me back in the sun and the rain

I was all rough surfaces of unpolished rock
Unaware of your fingers catching and tearing
Rubbing into peace with breath-taking caring

I wondered at times if you felt the pain
Undone by the scraping that was for my good
Hands covered by the color of your own blood

And I was sharp glass, with edges to cut
Unspoken by quietness in your golden eyes
That shivered into silence all of my lies

I tried to hide from you, curled up in darkness
Unwilling to face myself and your reality
Not wanting to have the light to be able to see

And I waited for you and the sound of your voice
Unsure of if I was doing what’s right
But your voice sang over me all through the night