two poems

Here are two poems I wrote during the course of our 8 hour ACSI conference today, after a half-day of school.

from the ground

we are just dust, just particles

chemicals and dirt and ground

one day surely we will return

one day we will be found

so, then what makes this moving flesh

a vessel for something more?

what is this skin covering-

what more than dirt and bones?

O God, pierce the very land

that makes my heart its home

till and break and make submit

this wild heart to You alone

the dirt again will overtake

my breath and my lifeblood

captive to the cycle of death

and left with death-mixed mud

O God, O God, pierce this land

so stubborn in this season

that refuses to bear the fruit you ask

the dirt defiant without reason

how does the dirt dare to ask-

how does it find a voice,

when everything about its nature

is dependent on a greater force?

with what complaint can the ground reply

to the Maker's questions

when anything good in dirt

comes at the Maker's suggestion

O God, O God please pierce this land

that makes my heart its home

till and break and make submit

this wild heart to You alone

orphan child

orphan child, wrapped in bare skin

the night stole her innocence

darkness crept where light should be

and took wholeness from her side

and yet in the deepest dark dwells

a light that burns deeper still

someday the orphan child will no longer wander

but will be captured in redemption's glorious tide