Desperately seeking Grace

Oh dear, precious, absent Grace,

where are you hiding these days?

You’ve been run out of religion

by their sanctimonious judgment,

and this world, rigging games,

says you’re too green to survive;

weeds of greed, thorny with exploitation,

will quickly reap you naked

until you die.

(And that’s no lie.)

Must we declare an Amber Alert,

dear, precious Grace,

and also for Mercy, Love, and Peace?

Lost, we seek saviors from the sky

filled with clouds rolling thunder,

blinded to the hell we let reign down,

bruising the ground

and pummeling the weak.

(And the meek.)

Please show us yourself, dear, precious Grace,

you are so much more than simply missed.

Your existence is necessary

for the preserving of humanity’s

life everlasting

because of your promise in God’s loving Kiss,

raising us from mere animality

to authentic spiritual witness.

(And it’s worth the risk.)

If you are hiding in us, Grace,

here asleep on the ground,

come out, come out, wherever you are,

break free your chrysalis,

fly to us,

wake us,

and be found.

Peace Nook, Columbia, MO

Spilled minutes

I have spent

much of my life

in grief and wine,

some of it medicinal,

but most thieving

of my time.

bottom to top shelf

Vermont Current

Mother Earth hums

under my boots as softly and slowly

snowflakes flutter into a footprint below

ahead on the whitely dusted Battell Trail

that crutches up the tremoring cosmic mound

of a half-naked Mount Abraham.

Lincoln General Store’s stovetop pot

hot, creamy corn chowder

warmly blankets my belly

tucked into my nourished body

vibrating, attune to the forest’s

crisp frequency of quivering silence,

only cracked by my first footstep

on the frozen ground, before a birdsong

oscillates callings, answers

upon the frigid breezes

buzzing the tops of the icy antennae

of blue-green pine needles

lively, emitting new Life.