"Tommy's Poem"

mother father gave, giving
Wounded scarred
scarring
we are only what you bring
bringing, brought
having only what wasn’t lost
losing, living
We come, came into this sea
swirling, sent,
centered
We grow, catch on, right on
or wrong
channeled and narrowed
to the scars we paint ourselves
images
those before, forebears
image-bearers of bodies
less divine.
unbeaten, unbroken
We imagine ourselves the apples
of unbroken eyes
only you my dear-come close my dear.

True North’s star pulling, aching
stretching we burn with fires
too ancient to tell
too impatient we fell

mercy

a thousand generations
born into wars never known
anchors thrown
again and again, nothing again
hands steady, the drunkard, the thief,
the saint, the hate hated
apart from you we grew, grow
growing

spying the silent and the patient bend
what are men that you think of us?
think of me? see me?
mother smother, father, fathered farther
You my True North’s star
I’ll swallow you whole
let light be my blood,
take up these celestial rags
for riches, richer
reaching

beyond these eddies, behind these clouds
I’ll wrap you a heart
laced, traced
tracing
scars far farther,
father mother sister brother
stranger, lover
incomplete-completing

hover, like fog so true
cover my ash for something blue
your eyes, eyeing
seeking
sounds of the sea
stilled this storm once
again
once
again

Set me, rest me, the fate of kings and royalty
I love thee
never needed a home
be my home, this wooden ship

Whole to the end I swear never
have seas sounded more like home
to me
Me- a hollow two-lettered
two-coiled thing too weak to tell

linger just after loss
a while longer, transform these eyes
eyeing, seeking
finding, seek, seeker
sought
the grace given, grace begot

strong rush ahead and back
to treacherous, forgotten
wounded, wound
wound so tightly, here at the end of all sighs
here as all winds die
ships abandoned

just you and I
a pile of deeds
a throng smiling on and on
you my North Star burning brilliantly
brilliant, jubilant
we die
grace forgiven grace begot.


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Lord, your Word is a double-edged blade
It pierces me as it reveals more of You
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