Descent

How can you rightly be remembered,
Burn and blaze in my waning soul,
I with the sense of a new born foal,
Neglect the love that gathered,
This one to its breast.

You have entered my darkest places,
And I held the spike and the spear,
Cold. As dark filled the sky with fear,
Hades halls were stormed by graces,
Only dying could attest.

As there I stood with dripping spear,
With all the children of Adam's race,
What is this — our sin did God erase?
There his blood has stained this sphere.
Without rancor or protest.

And I can taste your flesh and blood,
At your table, the bread and the wine,
Brings you — as death could not confine,
A seed that dies, will arise and bud,
Hope for all the dispossessed.

How can you rightly be remembered,
Burn and blaze this birthing soul,
This body and blood — an ardent coal,
That ambers the grace I once hungered,
In death — love did you bequest,

To save a broken man,
And his kin,
And his race,
In your descent.

Recoil

Our blue-green home pulses life,
Blooms of plankton sea-titans feed,
And pollens and bees each compound,
The living dreams of beast and seed,
Exuding artistry — lavish in excess.
Yet, trembling — aware of fragile need,
Every cell draws a breath.

With gifts of rain and sod and air,
And eyes that crinkle in the sun,
With kin, we laugh, and tell stories,
Yet still cringe at what we become,
Like a bird that flutters from a hand
Offering seed — it's hunger will shun.
Every soul knows its fear.

And while we could but live for love,
Our kind craves the poverty of power,
Pulsing the blood of seraphs and satans,
Our love is lust, as we long to tower
Uber-strong over quiet kindred souls;
Though graced, firmly return a glower.
Everyone by tooth and claw.

And I too, like a dog with lowered tail,
Will test and doubt the stranger's hand.
Though every crystal revealed as light
From water, my blue-grey orbs will brand,
Betrays such love that fires each life,
Each dream, each place, each grain of sand.
Everything yet in strange recoil.

Penitent,
Confession.