a poem or prayer

Sap and glitter on my hands

(I was decorating the tackhouse for Christmas, mother, it’s quite cozy)

Oh the joys of living

Light dancing through the trees

(When it snowed and you're hiking and the sky is clear and the sun is almost set)

Oranges and yellows against the whites and grays

What is this life

I am a creature made of flesh and bone

(so many bruises)

Briefly breathing on this tilting earth

(have you ever really thought about it)

And yet i feel and i think

In ways i can't explain

(i was homesick yesterday and my sweatshirt smelled like someone i knew)

I hug and i laugh and i cry

And decide things are meaningful to me

And yet

There are trees growing ever so quiet

Water freezes

(the lake is almost completely frozen over)

Birds and birds and birds fly and sing

(I still don’t know the birds in wisconsin)

A flaming star casts light through the woods

The planet spins from light to dark

(the moon was full last night)

And yet

People starve

They kill one another

Pain reeks like dead bodies

Death

(lord in your mercy, hear our prayer)

We are only briefly breathing

We are so fragile

Skin breaks easy

Our blood seeps out

Us outside of us

Oh the joys of living

Oh the sorrows of dying

Is it not astounding that we

You and i are human

It is all sacred

Holy

Fashioned out of the earth

By divine hands

Divine breath in our lungs

A lord over all

YAHWEH

The deeper magic

Before time

(there is a lamppost in the snow on the walk to my home)

And yet

He loves us

Quite recklessly

He has died for us

He calls you beloved

He calls me beloved

Rise my child, let us awaken the dawn

(and the earth tips towards the sun, light spilling over the brim and chasing itself through the shadows)

.