Risk

Those feelings native to our hearts
Are feelings of hiding and of turning
And of running away inside
Whenever we don’t hear the words
That were supposed to fill that
Empty empty cold and empty

S p a c e

Let’s go away because
We are unwanted here
We are not beautiful enough
Not wanted with the last layer of lipstick or
The thin so thin and see-through shirt
That gave them the chance to see
A little more of what I am underneath
We risked it all in a moment
By breathing by walking
In the door by standing
By sitting by speaking...

Oh, by speaking we risked it all
By asking we cast our cards
Apon the table and
They
Never
Even
Saw them
Let’s just go away
Its over now we did the best
We possibly possibly could
My hair was straightercurliershinierwavier
This time and still they didn’t see me
We don’t think we will speak
Again.
It's too great a risk
To be broken that way is just too painful
And I don’t possess that kind of strength

They should have seen how fragile
We are underneath
We feel the cold cold clamming up inside
We will crawl beneath the table
Behindthewallbeneaththebed
Somewhere

We will go to a cave a dark cave
A cold cave and hard inside
To stay awhile
Till we sink out of existence

Please don’t see us now
Ugly ugly terrifying ghosts
Staring from the mirror
With three stalls behind it
Where I want to go and cry
Please let me be here alone
Please let us die inside alone together
Away from the eyes that didn’t
See us

(April 2006)

This is one of the "riskiest" poems to post, but I wanted to anyway. It's about the desire I've experienced and seen in other girls to be seen, noticed, heard, and wanted. Whether it's a good desire, a foolish one, a selfish one, a legitimate one...well, it doesn't matter. It's there.

Love is Not a Fragile Thing

Love is not a fragile thing,
That it should faint when left unwooed
Or take to heart the bitter sting
Of unpaid debts long due

Love is not a candle flame,
That it should dim or be snuffed out
Because an ill wind blows its way
Of rumor and of doubt

Love is not frail, that it should die
From long exposure to the cold
Nor is it timid and should hide
In dark corners, left untold

Love is not a tender plant,
That it should wither with the drought
Or wilt for little things–
A slight, a frown, a pout
But is a vine that clasps and clings
And is loath to be plucked out

Love is a flame that leaps and burns
With kindled passions like a fire
But when all lovely lights are gone
Beyond reason and skin-deep desire,
Love is love for holding on
She will forgive, and smile, and never tire.

(Oct. 2005)

I'm so convicted by my own words...I guess that's how I know they weren't "mine" in the first place.

Learning Russian

Russian words
Grammar. Structure. Sounds.
Crash harsh and salty on me
An ocean of unknowns
Under a stormy sky
Pelting, battering, beating me
Sloshing up with an unexpected slap
Fierce and wild and gray.
Then I climb ashore, dripping wet
Into English prepositions
And the sun comes out.

(Aug. 2007)

Serving Justice

Smack! Down flew my hand to victory! As morning dawned, and the first rays of light seeped into my bedroom between drawn window blinds, I slew the Evil Mosquito King of Doom. That little feller had enough of my blood in him to be my relative, but that didn’t stop me from murdering him in cold blood. Well, make that warm blood. Mine. Fresh. Little Vampire!

I staggered from the battle scene into the bathroom to nurse my wounds and dispose of my dead advarsary. Mattie had long since deserted the battlefield for a cooler, less mosquito ridden atmosphere. After washing the mosquito down the sink, I inspected my leg– four fresh bites. Then I looked in the mirror. My right eyelid was swollen to obesity and flopped grotesquely over my eyelashes. Hey, I thought, I really do look like a casualty of war.

After all, I am a veteran. India. Summer of ‘06. Slathered in my secret armor, Coppertone Bug ‘n Sun lotion, I endured many a sticky night, outwitting the enemy and waging the battle for sleep to the threatening roar of the swamp cooler. There was the day I took out Sir Obnoxious the Evil Fly with one fell flick of the fingernail and smeared his evil fly remains apon the back window of the jeep, there to rot forever. It was really quite impressive and I should have been decorated.

Now, however, I’m back at home, a weathered soldier of sorts, once again engaging in a battle for my honor, my family, my sleep. Oh, I’ve witnessed the havocs of this war. Not just a bulging eyelid or a leg smattered with evidences of sinister blood-slurping. It’s the sight of my family members in the morning, reduced to strained, sunken-eyed zombies, deprived of the freedom to sleep in peace.

Well, I’d better (yawn) get moving. Duty calls. I need to look up the life span of the average female mosquito, and possibly tend the casualties of yet another battle. If I never post again, you’ll know my unfortunate demise. I quote from the dank walls deep in the bowels of Chateau D’If, one time prison of the Count of Monte Cristo– "God will give me justice!"

(actually wrote this yesterday morning but didn't post then, obviously.)

Joy Is

Joy is around a table and a meal
Joy is in a family and a hearthfire
And drawing other kindred hearts
Into that glowing circle.

Joy is seeing life begin
In the new green of leaves
In the face of a newborn child
In the hopeful light of gentle dawn.

Joy is the mystery in music
That melts and yet binds up our souls;
Joy is a walk on a cold, clear night
When the stars sing out that all is well.

India's Son

The little brown eyes take me away
It’s like heaven there and
His brown nose is so indescribably
Small and precious and perfect
Something wells up inside me
I have these tears and I don’t know why at all
His perfectly formed ears fit on his head in such a way
How overwhelmed I am
He is India, in a huge, small way

Questions for God

Are You ready to recieve me
Into open arms?
Are Your arms as big
As a January moon?
Are Your eyes as deep and secret
As mystic forest gloom?
Is Your voice like crushing thunder
Rolling on the sea?
And what I really want to ask You is:
Can You love a girl like me?

(Jan. 2006)

Small Things

Beneath the shade of grass
A haphazard village-town exists
Weaving, woven, time and nature,
Last fall and last winter–

Thatch-roofed hovels along warm and dirty alleyways.
There is a beetle going for his lunch,
A worm-king burrowing in his house.
Bright grass-trees ascend and lean
Towards the earth to catch again
The scent of worms and breaking seeds.

I’m seeing things I thought too small to see–
Nine specks of sand in the valley-scoop
Of a green-growing blade,
Delicate hairs running up its stem
Softer, newer than the hairs
On my baby brother’s back.

Here a violet stands tall and prominent–
Poignantly purple with traces of blue.
When my eyes refocus and these sights sink in
I see it there like a perfect piece of art
Everthing
Else
Goes blurry
In the green underworld
God’s foolishness is wiser than man’s wisdom after all
God’s weakness is stronger than man’s strength
The things that are not will nullify those things that think they are.

(April 2006)

Pursuit

Don't you always run and yet
You didn't mean to run, it's just
That the Pursuing is so beautiful
And you hope for it.
You hope for Him to lay His hand
On you and make you stay,
But you always run away,
Ashamed, unrested like a bird,
Wounded and always taking flight.
Glancing from the corner of your eye,
You catch Him in your sight.
You have to turn, to look again
Yes, He's pursuing; yes, He's wooing
All the running, all the doing
Is undone. Now He's coming.
It's as you never dared to hope
You can't escape
Wherever you hide, He will find you
Wherever you run, He's behind you
When you turn around to face the dark
He sees through you, to the heart
He paid once for your blinding shame,
Light and dark, now they're the same
He's running to find you just to tell you
Don't be afraid, He'll overtake you
With a strong hand laid on you
He'll finish all the wooing.
Oh, look behind you, be assured!
Your Lover is Pursuing.

(Fall 2006)

Please forgive the atrocious punctuation.

A poem and this Summer

Being with you without words
Would be a precious thing--
Those words that clutter up the space,
That claw and cling
Attempting to build a bridge between us--
Would you stay if there were no words
To hold your eyes to mine
Or would you slip away,
Uncaptured by my quietness?

(Jan. 2006)

I didn't post a poem yesterday, obviously...totally forgot about it in the course of an eventful but pleasant, relaxing day. But of course, it was Sunday, and it's probably best that I didn't "try" to post. I wasn't going to be legalistic and ban myself from posting on Sundays, but God can lead me how He wants, and apparently He led me to forget all about it yesterday :) All this stuff is in His hands.

This summer I:

Was really bored for the first time in my life
Surrendered a lot of my busy little plans and projects
Practiced waiting

And I think the biggest thing I've gotten out of it all is that, even as God leads me into "more exciting" phases in my life (where I get to use some of my interests), I need Him for everything. I'm not an independent being. I need my next breath from Him...I need to be anchored in Him, every day, every hour, every minute. So...to live that out :)

A Sort of Gift

I'm offering my love to You
Like a flower, like a little gift
Cupped in my hands, I send it toward heaven
To find the throneroom where they say
You accept such humble gifts as these.
All of my devotion lies in this tiny throbbing prayer
Because if I give my heart away
How can I be anything anymore?
Oh, make me what I cannot be*
What I have never been before.

(February 2007)

*From a prayer a Pastor prayed in India.

A blue and pinkish poem

A hazy blue and beautiful peace
Is falling, is sweet
The sun is slipping pink
Like a pill in Evening’s throat
Too beautiful for this language

(July 2006)

This one doesn't really have a name. It's what I thought when our airplane took off from somewhere (I can't remember which airport!) on the way to India last summer.

Bubble Gum Girl

She swings like flying bubble gum
With artificial curls in pigtails
Under a crocheted cap
Like a swiss girl or something.
Her cheeks are round-so-rosy-round and
Freckled-speckled.
The tips of her amber eyes slant down
Under the cap
To meet the ends of her smiling mouth.
She smells like bubble gum,
All small and pink and sky-soaring
She thinks she is a bird.
She thinks she is a fairy.
She thinks she is a princess.
She is.

(April 2006)

This is about a girl, about 6 years old, named Trista. We met in a park and the saucy little thing made me swing her for...well, a long time!

Looking Up

Oh God, you saw today
All the thoughts I turned away
All the words I didn't say
All I see is that I tried
And that I failed in many ways...
But through this downtrodden teary haze
I'm searching for Your loving gaze
Remembering the past when You've
Forgone the dread rebuke.
Outside and to the world I've failed
My overwhelming flesh prevailed
But You must see the lifted face
Tearstreaked, hungry for embrace
Weakened by the weight of work
Bound by countless duties shirked
Afraid of knowing deep inside
The demand that goes unsatisfied
Thirsty for the blood that frees
Longing to look with eyes that see
At the tree of my Savior's love
And find to there my freedom, proved.

Having Reasons Makes Me Happy

Yay for today!

I bought two books today, and reading them is like being given a thousand dollars to spend exactly as I please. Oh, make that a million. Freedom! Fireworks! Rapturous tumults of effervescent radiance!!! (In my brain, that is...and hopefully it will get out soon.) God is so good to me. He really does answer prayers, and He's in the middle of something in my life that is way too big for me to understand. So I want to just enjoy the ride.

All of my english teacher inclinations are aroused today, right down to the long brownish plaid skirt I'm sewing.

The books I got are called "Any Child Can Write" and "If You're Trying to Teach Kids to Write...You've Gotta Have This Book." Sounds audacious as I type it. I'm so excited because I get the chance to use words and write and wake up the english language in kids. At least three, that I know of. Broderic, Bronwyn, and Mattie. Oh the ideas I'm getting! My greatest fear is that I don't know enough to teach them...but what I don't have in professional knowledge, I'm discovering I have (and will have in increasing amounts) in enthusiasm and genuine love for the language. And this teaching thing...well, it gives me a very legitimate reason to pursue writing myself, and keep indulging my personal bent for learning. I haven't been able to really learn on my own or dedicate myself to writing as I desire to, simply because I'm never quite sure if it's ok...if it's not selfish, or a waste of time, or something goofy like that. Maybe you would just give me a big "DUH" on that one, but it is a huge obstacle to me.

However...if I'm going to teach kids to read and write and love learning and language, well then, I had better love it and learn it myself, right? Reading "If You're Trying to Teach Kids to Write..." reminded me that the kids need to see a a living example of a writer right in front of their eyes. They have to see you DO IT to know it's important. And, they need to know you will go through it all right alongside them, that you aren't an ogre out to make their lives miserable with impossible assignments. In the book, the theme is: It's not about writing, it's about human beings. Teachers should model the sacrificial love of Christ by expecting nothing out of the kids that they have not or do not go through themselves. Mrs. Burklin has always been a great example of this to me, and that principle is probably one of the most significant I've learned from her over the four years of being her pupil. She had (has) a very high academic standard, but never put us through work that she was not willing to participate in and take responsibility for herself.

These are just tumbly thoughts climbing out of heaps in my head. It's very busy up there right now. I was also going to add a bit about how I got a haircut today and feel much more like a real girl than a Tibetan yak who lost his hairbrush...(in the East Texas summertime, no less!) but I think, though, that I'm going to shut it down and find somewhere to hibernate with my new books. Ciao!

Mountains

On either side we look and see
Mountains in their majesty
Soft and rolling, rising steep
Stretch out grassed arms and reach down deep
Above the city strain they sleep

Reminds us of another place
Far off from this meager space
Another mount and city we
Wait with eager eyes to see
When Jesus reigns and men are free.

(July 2005)
I wrote this hiking down from a mountain in Hong Kong at about 7am...the sun had arrived in a blaze of glory...the grass bowed majestically on the steep mountain slope...the hazy bustle of the downtown Hong Kong hovered before us in the lofty quietness...oh, to be there again, just for a moment :)

Silence

Silence is here in my room
Silence laced with cricket song
That makes silence still more silent
And revolves the earth, all night long
That would otherwise forget to move.
It's a silence in which my soul sings
And rests and mounts with wings
And yet comes down and nests.
I'm folded in the wing of God;
I feel Him tiptoe in my room
And breath close to my ear
And I smile because it's in this silence
I remember what I've forgotten all day long--
A love, a joy, a peaceful rest,
When silence comes and I
Lay breathing on His chest.

(Aug. 2006)

Trembling

My words are trembling
In their rosy skins
Waiting to be peeled and tasted.

Those are words I wrote in my journal a year and a half ago. My words have still waited and waited, and sometimes still trembled too...and I think now I'm going to post some poems. One today, hopefully another tomorrow :) That's all the explanation I'll venture right now.


I see You
Knee-deep in mud
Brave arms bared against the snake
As You wrestle with my life.

No wonder You were trained a carpenter
Strong and able to build and mend.

No wonder You're the Potter
For this audacious clay.

No wonder You were whipped
And nailed in blood to die-

Now subdue my soul to ransom
To know this passioned Christ.

(July 2007)

Attending the Wed...uh, Battle

I have very few minutes to write. In a little while we're going to church to prepare for and attend Rachel and Adam's wedding...joy! I was already there yesterday, partaking of the feelings in the air and enjoying the stunning artwork of God in the form of fresh colored peppers :) (we were cutting vegetables.)

I'm so happy to see Rachel get married (and Adam to, though I don't know him as well). I look up to Rachel so much, and she's the kind of person who makes me think "I wish I could just get inside her mind and see what she's like more." And learn from her. She has so much grace, and the word I thought of when I saw her at her shower was "tranquility."

Speaking of tranquility...oh weddings are so beautiful and happy...its a luxury to bask in the sweetness of the fellowship and anticipation and beauty, just enjoying watching lives and people, and getting to share their smiles. For us young ladies though...we look so forward to attending a wedding and its so delightful, but I'm afraid that for some of us (all?) get the feeling we're also walking straight onto a battle ground the minute we step into the church doors, smell the flowers, and catch a glimpse of the glowing bride.

I hope to escape, by the grace of God, the assailing forces of romantic imagination (ahhhhhh!!!!) I remember going home from a wedding a few years ago and burying my head in a pillow with the closest thing I've ever had to a migraine, headphones, droning Fur Elise into my ears, trying to forget, and remember, and hold on to the beauty, and yet let go...aggg.

I'm more aware of the battle today than I was then, a little more ready to meet the fray...but fray there will be, as long as warmblooded females attend weddings! For all my girlfriends out there who will be at the wedding...know I'm praying for you and we're in the battle together. We battle for strength yet tenderness, love, yet focus on the Lover of our souls. Amen!

Seasons

Life...it passes so slowly for all the action that it holds. (to loosely quote Jim Elliot) As I told Mom at lunch time, it's a one-thing-at-a-time kind of day. (But isn't every day?) In terms of physical goals accomplished...there are three.

Goal #1 Have a meaningful, encouraging conversation with Mom
Goal #2 Shower
Goal #3 Start housework

Well, I did it! I accomplished my goals :) In the course of the morning I also had a short stint as imaginary stage coach driver, took a letter to the mail box, and restrained myself from contributing volatile comments during a semi-heated debate over how pop tarts should be eaten. (All in favor of toasted, say aye!!) There, got that off my chest. Sometimes one's suppressed opinions become a burden too onerous to bear.

Honestly, though, I want to encourage any of you who are wrestling with the mundane right now. That seems to describe me, and a lot of the people I hang out with :) It could be that we're just a boring, purposeless lot; or it could be that we love Jesus and we're learning to trust Him.
I think it's the latter :)

I know that in the world's eyes, in my own eyes, I haven't "gotten much done." But really, I do have two worthy goals.

Goal#1 Love God
Goal#2 Love people

And from what I've heard, that's actually just one goal mixed together! Today, my young cousins are over (the imaginative stagecoach passengers), I have three siblings and two parents milling around, and soon Mattie and I's friend Camila will be here! And later I'll be babysitting at least five impressionable, creative, busy youngsters who I love...and who knows who else I'll meet. And God. God is here, always gentle with me, guiding me. I haven't done a perfect job of showing love, but its my goal, and I'm pursuing it in a steady course.

I want to encourage you to enjoy the stage coach rides with me, to liberally distribute smiles and kind words, and most of all sing songs of praise to the One who desevers them. Life works in SEASONS, as a good friend encouraged me several months ago. We'll always deal with struggles, but not all struggles are going to last forever. The same God who causes the seasons to come and go, the sun to rise and set, and the tides to rise and fall, will not abandon His children.

""Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to seperate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark the seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so." Gen. 1:14-15

"So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will recieve what He has promised. For in just a little while,

'He who is coming will come and will not delay.
But My righteous one will live by faith.
And if he shrinks back,
I will not be pleased with him.'

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved."
Heb. 11:35-39

You are not alone.

Does it matter if I write?

What difference does it make? I urgently need to know. More urgently, I need to know what difference it will make for me to write.

I guess I was born with a passion for words and writing. And if a person is born with an innate drive to do a thing (besides sin!) then I guess it's from God. So far I've only toyed with words...I used to dream up characters and tell myself stories about them (too lazy to write whole stories) and filled up notebooks with doodles and "plans" and paragraphs destined to abandonment. The stories just didn't come out right. The characters were two-dimensional, and words that sparkled so brightly inside were just drab rags on paper. Plus, none of my stories really had a plot. Dismal, but true.

Later I wrote poems, because they just fell out on their own without all that work and were mercifully acceptable without a plot :) I just had to use words, I had to get my thoughts OUT. And I've journaled and journaled (going on 27 I think.) It's a nice outlet, sometimes to the point of addiction :) Somehow, I just keep wondering...what does this have to do with God, with life, with people, with reality? With God's kingdom?

Deep down, I'm craving art, dying to convey something beautiful, significant, and valuble. Painting...Poetry...Music...Lace and Full Moons and Waltzes, played on a piano. Most of all people. Feelings. Why we do what we do and need what we need. How God somehow loves us, and what He did about it. It's a craving for beauty, actually. Beauty God created. Beauty He made me to "recreate," somehow. Whenever I hear the piano played, something wells up in me that wants to spread my fingers along those keys and send out a beautiful song. When I see shadows falling on trees in the woods, or picture something in my head I wish I could look at with physical eyes, I long to put my fingers to the brush...or at least a pen. I've tried, but to no use. I could practice, and learn...but the moment is always gone before I pursue the skill. But when words dance across my mind, and ideas conglomerate and float around like giant bubbles in a lava lamp, and I start pacing the floor and twisting my hair and generally becoming absent from the world for a moment...well, sometimes, just sometimes, I sharpen a pencil, dig out a journal, and write. And something is satisfied. The bursting and swelling inside is abated for a time.

This has happened less often lately. A spring is running low inside. Not dry completely, but low. When the subject of writing comes to mind, I stare at it blankly, confused, sometimes tempted to beat my head on the mental brick wall. I was meant to thread words together, somehow. I was meant to make them beautiful, to communicate beauty and God. I was meant to communicate a story to someone who knows it already, but couldn't put it into words themselves. But I have no plot, no characters, no setting, no history. All I have are these elusive words, phrases, and abstract ideas, trembling mirages that disappear as soon as I reach out to touch them.

Back in the spring, as I wondered how I'd pass the time this summer, I was explaining my flexible plans one day to someone who promptly replied: "You could write a book!" It was kind of a joking suggestion, but it stuck with me because that's precisely what I'd like to do now that I'm free of the demands of highschool. Write. Not a book, really, but something...a story.

If I knew that I could write with purpose, I would be able to write with passion. I'm tired of writing for myself. Scribbling up journals may be a great personal hobby, and a cheap alternative to therapy, maybe :) If the only benefit goes to me, though, what is the real worth of it? I want to write with a nobler vision, but I have no idea how anything I write might that help anyone. Especially poetry. What use is a poem? I mean, it's obviously an issue to consider because a good portion of the population thinks poetry is sentimental and useless anyway. For the rest of us who are somehow captivated by it...why is it worth our attention? Why do we somehow hold poetry up on a pedestal as a thing to be respected. Is it simply because the ancients wrote it that we think it's special? Are we just crazy? When I get to heaven, will it matter if I have written anything? Judging by the urgent tugging inside me, I have to say yes. But I have no idea why.