Two Poems

        SEEING

   (Mark 8:24, John 9:25)

Jesus touched a blind man,
blinking now he sees;
all those voices in the night
tower about like trees.

Daylight hammers on a heart
used to restless sleep,
reveals his feet against a slope
shimmering and steep.

Who will bear the weight now
shown unbearable?
Who will heal his wakened heart
aching to be whole?

He that touched the eyes
bears a wounded tree.
“All I know is this, that I
was blind, and now I see.”



              But God

A curse, and the woven bramble
they wrenched on Jesus’ brow
to jeers from guts gone cold.
But God laughed last:
he turned those writhing thorns into
a crown of gold.

Down his face in trickles,
like lava down his chest
oozed the holy human blood.
But God gave more:
out of those pitiful streams he made
a worldround flood.

Racked on the ax-scarred tree
my Savior hung and loved
through agony of bone.
But God raised stakes:
he took the blood-kissed wood of the cross
and built a throne.