Simple

Perhaps a simple word is required

before this long and lonely night expires.

I deserve nothing but wrath.

I claim nothing but Christ.

If I stand it is by your favor.

If I serve it is with my life.

Perhaps some theme in simple measure

will serve to divest of this world's treasure.

On A Clear Day

Hephestian tongues advance

licking the furrowed trunks of the jack-pine,

blistering in the scorching heat

---a caustic baptistery.

The thin column of smoke rising,

unhindered on a windless day.

Skyward, wings flit,

to and fro, obscured

by the shimmering haze, this inferior mirage.

Seen in part,

this flame deluge

but scores the earth a dreadful scar

yet from this consuming fire 

brings a loosening

of resinous bonds

and the flutter 

of a thousand anxious wings

bursting forth in flight

to greet the northern sky.

Born in new shoots

and tender stalks,

is the splendid alchemy

of eucatastrophic design

---boreal resurrection. 

Moriah

Moriah, O sweet Moriah

where grew the sacred terebinth

that bid aloft the holy king

whose grace issuing forth has since

fulfilled the hopes of patriarchs

who in Machpelah slumber still

beneath Mamre's towering oaks

darkness cannot their joy dispel.

Moriah, who bore twice the weight

of sacrifice; who saw in hand

the fire and the knife at Isaac's 

throat laid, before appeared the ram

and later felt the violent rain

fall from Abraham's precious seed

to light the watch-fires for every

distant nation who would believe.