Pound out a poem
when your soul
feels empty, betrayed
by a loss, or
a distance, or
a failure.
Pound out a poem:
stretch your words
tight, like the
skin of deer
on ringed
wooden
rim.
Your voice… your stick
Your pain… your power
Your heartbeat… your hope.
Yes, hope, keeping
time because sometimes
this hope of time
is all we have.
The world is scarred, and
its people bleed; their
tears stain oceans. Earth’s
skin is torn; hope
evaporates. Dreaming
reverts again to nightmared
sleep that leaves, that left
both Mother and child bereft.
And yet You come, You
Healer of our Every Ill, You
Balm in Gilead, in Syria, in Ecuador, in Attawapiskat –
rippling across globe like
pebbled waves – as dogged as
spring’s march, sap’s flow, universe’s expanse.
You kiss this scar we are
and etch beauty across pain.
You come to us again.
You come.
You.
