To Carry The Fire

Dear little one,

God’s newest dewy-eyed creation,

here begins mortality.

You’re a warrior, love.

Only the fighters make it here.

The days will end that

angels are your playmates,

and the lessons will begin with

swings to the sky and bloody knees,

sticky-sugar fingers and a stomachache.

Your toddler eyes will widen as you find the seed,

which you buried long ago in the Earth

has turned to tender, fragile life.

The day will come when you realize that

each tender, fragile life, in the end,

will again be buried deep in the Earth, and

The angels will hold you as your tears teach you to mourn.

You’ll learn, love, that they don’t exist only in Heaven.

They live all around you, flesh-veiled grace-

they are the reason there’s good in the world.

There will be times your giggles turn to tears

in one breath and you’ll realize, as you try to explain your sorrow,

that words have given way to depth,

your fears are deeper than the dark,

and sometimes, all you can do is feel.

You don’t know him yet,

but he will set you free.

You will meet heaven,

and find your tongue incapable, forever,

of adequately speaking your soul.

You will reach, silently begging him

to hear, behind your words, the

universe of experience unable to be spoken.

You’ll taste death when he leaves.

Sorrow will run rivers down your skin,

Love and hate will rule together and

when you fall to your knees,

you’ll burn with screaming anger

and whispering sorrow even as your lips

beg God to bless his dear, beloved soul.

You’ll lie between clean, white sheets in the pale yellow morning,

feeling the draw between your soft, still sanctuary and

the bright wild world, and many nights

your heavy head will be ready to return much sooner

than your vibrant mind.

You’ll learn memories are not transcendent-

you’ll ache in the midst of beauty at the thought

of losing something you’d never missed before.

Yet if you pay attention in excruciating pain,

you’ll feel the beauty growing.

You’ll stop one day, in your tracks

your tiny feet dwarfed in Christ’s footprints,

and ask why roses have thorns.

He’ll take your hand and explain that if He didn’t give you mountains,

you’d have nothing to climb.

You’ll learn little one, that

to be human is to experience every contradiction.

The friction in our muscles, in our minds, in our lives-

it’s the heat that fuels the flame, and we are created for nothing less

than to carry the fire.

(Fall 2014)