Two Poems

Written this past February...

Fix Your Gaze

Fix your gaze:

                Fractured and short-sighted,

                Sees only a bum on the street,

                A fault in a friend,

                A self-governed life,

                A splintery chunk of wood.

Fix your gaze:

                It’s broken, after all.

Fix your gaze:

Now see the Author

                Of the God-imaged man by the road,

                Of the fellow sinner clinging to a savior,

                Of the gifted life that must be gifted back,

                Of the cross on Calvary 

Where cataracts are replaced by eagle’s eyes—

Fix your eyes on Him.

I Prayed the Other Day

I prayed the other day:

My words tumbled over under piled high to heaven

Like hiker’s cairn with added cares one atop another

And when I couldn’t lift one more

There I stood with helpless gaze,

At the mountain I’d created.

And in the silence still

I stood,

In sweat and grime and dirt and dust.

And waited: But only saw

Slate sky above

boiling with roiling rage

Ready to consume me...

And then I felt a gentle shower—

                Cleansing dew like nectar:

     heaven’s answer