Lord, I raise the frail flag
Of prayer and ask for help.
My fate went freewheel and fell.
I fled this far on the lam.
Now hide me in the high place.
Hold me. Hush me. Take me in.
Trouble is singing down around me.
There is no end of it.
So lock me in a love that won't be breached.
Take my hunted heart in your hands.
Grab my soul by the bones,
And run.
On good days, I feel you under,
Around, and inside my afflictions.
Your heaven-heighted love
Draws down around me,
Speaks my name, settles me to stillness.
And I know that I’m known,
Carried, collected, and kept.
But this is not one of the good days.
My loves lost me all I wanted;
First a little bit, then a lot, then
Everything else all at once.
My clever plans didn’t pay out.
I hoped my way through happy lies
That didn’t keep me safe.
Now, I writhe. I waste. I am washed
In the amber grief light.
My memories honed bright edges
And I keep cutting myself
On the things that used to matter.
I am the black willow the fire left,
Curled and ash mad
And sloughing off embers.
Death has already set to work in me.
My garden is here. My friends are fled.
I’m gasping on my bedroom floor.
No one wants to see
The wrack wash over me.
My eyes won’t hold open,
As if I was not a living man,
but already one of the forgotten dead.
Sorrow has become my work and words,
So I stay inside and wait the shakes,
While panic sprouts wild around me.
But still
My love for you is unbroken.
I trust you. You are still mine.
Come as close as you can and closer.
I need walls, solid ground, handles,
Labels for things, a fortress,
Feathers, a father.
So wing around me, God.
Everyone knows I have hoped in you
And suffered anyway.
My times are in your hand.
I reel blind on the grindstone, but you shine.
You sear my shame with your
Whitefire, cauterizing love.
So, I seal my lips
And let it be enough.
Sway a wonder work among us.
Billow your goodness up
For your scattered sons.
Hide us, heal us, hold us
In your shelter from the strife of tongues.
I sought you as siege engines
Rattled against me and lobbed
Dead doubts I thought I’d left behind.
I panicked. I cried. I pleaded
And you rushed past the noise
And whispered how it is,
And was, and will be.
You dealt me double for all my fears.
You paid back the lost years.
You kept me hid as the wracking din
Rose and fell to ground again.
You are my guard and gift.
Tip the backward world rightside round.
Come be kinder than I thought you could.
Summon your steadfast love.
Send it in waves, in a flood,
In a long, unrolling tide.
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