Author: fpoussin

Stranger on the Waves of Time
Chase Rogers

Wave after wave

Time washes up on the shore of our own mortality
It takes with it whatever is light enough to be carried
What has weight to us remains
Family, and genuine friends have their feet planted with you
You pretend you’re immortal with your recklessness and your one track mind
Your clouded thoughts attract the ripples within the water, barreling one by one
All feel balanced until the waves of time take your legs from beneath you
Your time on the shore is short

Pushing and pulling

We are thrown against the currents of our own humanity
Emotional barrages meet us at full force with each whitewash embrace
How could they do this to me? Who can I turn to? I am alone.
Thoughts of negativity encourage the waves to switch strategies and attack from all angles
Your legs promote fatigue to your brain as the currents become too much
Hope flees you as the waves overtake your soul with each pounding crash
Your will to live is sinking

A stranger on the waves

The relentless attack of time is far too much for any mortal to handle.
Alone that is.
A book speaks of the story of a man who calmed a storm with his words
His doubting disciple reached him by walking to him on the water
The waves of time cry out his name till he silences them so that you may reach him
Leave the shore of your own mortality
Calm the waves that remind you that your time on the shore is short

Ocean is the end game

Wave after wave
Pushing and pulling
The belief that the water would get the better of our footing one day
The stranger on the waves calmed my own storm
I’m still on the shore, with just the waves that brush against my legs
When I meet my own mortality, I will not be carried out by the waves
I will be a disciple without doubt and sprint across the water to embrace him
To embrace the one who’s been waiting for me
The waves call out his name till he silences them for me to cross
The crashes resound, “Jesus”

“We are all Thieves”
Renee Emerson

we are all thieves; we have taken the scriptures in words, and know nothing of them ourselves.” –Margaret Fell

A gospel in the crook
of my arm.

Psalm tucked in my sleeve,
I’ve lifted

windows and broken
latches for Esther, Ruth, Jeremiah.

A long coat to cover
the epistles.

Book of Wisdom beneath the tongue.
Leviticus behind the ear.

Cut open my shoes
for Revelation and Jude.

Tucked in my bra:
a minor prophet.

The words of Jesus glint red
up from the bottom of
my purse, tag-clipped off
with my teeth.

No one will miss this
prophecy.

No one will miss this
lament.

“If someone had been there to record it”
Whitney-Faith Smith

If someone had been there to record it
they would have gotten quite the scene.
The dinning hall, wooden beams holding up a cathedral-like
ceiling, sun prancing in through 
the double-door sized windows,
reflecting off of the sugary floors. 

There was a lull,
no little camper-boys begging for another apple blossom
no tribe chants with clapping and stomping 
no chairs scraping against the wooden floors
no more chores to be done.

Alternative music was filling the hall, 
she chose to dance. 
In her khaki pants and pony tail
she began spinning and jumping, 
pulling me in to join her mirth. 
She called it interpretive dancing
waving her arms like ribbons in a breeze,
sliding to the floor to strike a dramatic pose. 
We added our laughter to the music. 
I miss my friend.

Ocean Fires
Kristin Towe

It was a year of flame
that ended in a day of ashes.
And you, oh fire of Moses,
are the One to blame.
And I, sea-weed drenched,
stood on my tiny vessel
in the expansive ocean,
with plans to sail away.

And now, when my heart
beat is steady, and now
when my laughter flows free
I can see that the fire and ocean
and the ash on my shipwrecked vessel
are proofs of your love for me.

The Roll Call
Madison Hunt

Before I walked to school for the first time,
I had only been called Lovey.
My daddy said it was because
I was the loveliest thing he’d ever seen
second to my mama
who was God’s present to the stars
and the daylilies in her garden.

                                    You look pretty, baby.
The soprano lilt to my mama’s voice
made me homesick before I took the first step
on my walk to school-learning.
She had flour on her chin
from the morning’s biscuits.
When she kissed my cheek, I was lulled by her warmth
and the smell of sizzled bacon grease.

Daddy went with me most of the way.
He started his work days before the days began,
but today was my day, he said.
His drawl made me believe that.
This was my day.
He passed the lunch that mama had fixed special
                                   You’re my little Lovey.
I held his words close as I opened the door.

I perched on a splintered chair
Waiting on someone, anyone
To notice me—
Me.

I had never experienced the stain of regret
Until I was duly noted and welcomed
By giggles and pudgy fingers pointing at me—
Me.

My hands flew to my flushed cheeks
Triggering stinging laughter.
I looked down at my dress—
Handmade, but like-new
How could they know?
My hands fell from my face
And not knowing where to look,
I turned my gaze to my palms—
white with flour.
                                   Loraine Adams?
                                   Loraine Adams!
The scent of bacon dissipated with the unfamiliar shrill
of my teacher’s voice and repeated declaration
Yes, ma’am—I confirmed.
That’s my name.
                                   Why, that’s a lovely name!
Yes, ma’am—I held back the want to correct her.
That’s my name.

Irremovable
Whitney-Faith Smith

Dishes, pranks, childrearing, flower
planting, cotton picking, letter writing.
All done by one set of hands,
wrinkled now, unable to hold a 
spade or even write a note without pain. 

But one thing remains 
faithful about her hands, the 
irremovable ring of gold 
fixed on her third finger.

It used to be thicker, her ring from 1940, 
with details of leaves engraved
upon it. Those have long since
vanished, scrubbed away by a
washboard, by peeling apples,
by holding hands.
 

Her engravings of love are now her 
memories of him,
walks down a dirt path, drives in his Chevy
car, a new kitchen dining room suit,
still prepared for supper. 

Her ring, like her skin, has been worn thin.
But never her love.
Faithfulness like a deep spring 
in the middle of a three month drought,
A woman of 96, who lost her husband
38 years ago,
yet continues to wear his love. 

“Nine months”
Chase Rogers

Nine months
I was loved before oxygen made its first voyage to my lungs
Emotions sporadic, thoughts ricochet
wall to wall
ear to ear
Her mind echoes the commotion

She lacks crucial knowledge, she would surpass all mothers

She was nineteen, life switched the plot
He took the form of stone next to her, concreted vows
Our family forms with the company of wedding bells

She sways me in her arms, a motherly cot
The crib , he spent an eternity assembling
I rarely enter
He pleads for a turn to become my bassinet
I remain in her cot, the swaying helps me sleep

She dreads and relishes the day she will have to put me down
Soon I will be an elusive toddler
She must be swift to seize her rambunctious offspring

My youth, encompassed with her compassion
I confused her caring for captivity
Foolish

Twenty-one years transpire
I reminisce the days of captivity

Occasional long distance calls
Rome to home
I still sense her kindness through the static

quick to lend an ear
even more to assist

mother
the one who surpasses all
I love you
these lines are just a reminder

Beachcomber
Madison Hunt

Amid the ebbing tide and speckled shore,

my restless feet and soul step out to play

and soon the eighth commandment disobey

as I have done so many times before.

Disrupting this oasis once again,

such eager fingers trophies do abate.

The rising thrill of treasure dissipates.

Then I return, a Glaucus among men.

 

A common thief, successfully seduced.

As first fruits of the sea entice the waves

to bring the morning harvest to the sand.

I marvel in littoral solitude

How God provides this manna, new each day

To be collected by unworthy hands.

Hiding Places
Hannah Cauthen

“A church turns into a crime scene”

a heading in a news article,

defines the state we are in;

the sacred has been robbed of

its sacredness, or

altogether discarded.

We are left to find it in other places:

The shack of a house, overgrown by

moss and vines and the meat

of the earth.

The little girl, book propped behind

the water fountain, not wasting

a second of her precious life.

The way the sun pierces through

a certain cloud to shine

through a certain tree and

set certain leaves ablaze,

the sacred, sacred way it does.

Ann Hasseltine Judson’s Letter to Her Parents in America
Renee Emerson

Your first grandchild was born in the rolling of a ship
at sea, and dead was given
to the sea, a water-creature of salt and darkness.

I gave myself to Burma
even more than Adoniram.
To the straw huts, and
children, cigars jutting from their mouths,
to the lepers, skin peeling like paper,
to women I doused in muddy water,
brought up again into a new life
that looked so much like the last.

Your second grandchild was born in the hut,
beneath the Buddhist statues, beside the slow flowing
river. He lived eight months, long enough
for me to believe something
in this life is lasting.

At the end, my hair shaven,
husband in prison, my third born
daughter sailing steadily toward
death, our North Star,

I still think it worthwhile
to speak the word of God
in a new tongue, though
it burns like holy fire.