The Lens of Poetry

May was poetry month for me and some of my family members. We challenged each other to write a poem a day for the whole month … so if there’s suddenly a lot more poetry showing up in my posts, that’s probably why!

The first is a poem I wrote one Thursday while watching my family’s booth at a farmers’ market. (And for those of you with a deeper interest in poetry, it’s written in the style of a Shakespearean sonnet.)

Every week I stand here watching faces

Musing on what lays behind each smile:

Like crooked teeth hid by silver braces

Shining bright, but hurting all the while.

Everyone says he’s good, and some they are,

But many are the sin-sick, the unwhole

They’ve chased their dreams, they’ve caught their own great stars …

They wear a smile to hide their empty souls.

Is there not hope for wanderers like these?

Why haven’t we told them of the way to God?

Oh, brother, sister, help them, tell them, please!

He can reach through each guilty facade.

What good is hope if we don’t give it voice?

We must sing forth so others may rejoice!

Joy

Surrender your

Dreams.

With God,

Better things are

In store

Praise Him for

Good things

In the past

And look

Ahead

For more.

Night of Hope

I wept with the moon tonight.

It shone, gentle and strong

On a world slipping into sleep …

A glimpse of the glory of God.

A glory battered, bruised, and betrayed

By our lawless lives.

Weep with me and the moon

Over a land lost in sin

Full of curses and hate,

Damage, despair, and death.

Oh, people, look up!

See the hands that hold the stars–

Hands once hammered by hate

Battered, bruised, and betrayed

To pave a path from our curse

To His love and life and light.

Weep with me and the moon

Tears that tell a tale

Of God and His gift

Tears that reach through wretchedness

And hold out hope to broken beings.

The moon, gentle and strong …

A glimpse of the glory of God.