Epaphroditus

after Philippians 2:25-30

It’s like the young man sent off to war—
Letters will be written home:
Received—
Read and re-read.
Creases in the paper grow worn
like father’s farm hands.
Life is thin.

The news is not good—
They are at the front lines:
a skirmish,
food rations,
it rained for sixteen days straight,
he’s sick with fever;
an undiagnosed illness in camp—
He tells of longing for mom’s canned peaches
and the familiar front porch.

Questions hang in the air like fog—
Descend and envelop the mind and heart.
If he doesn’t return—
The tone is tender:
But words are poor carriers
of what needs arms and breath to deliver.

Sis should have my old rocking horse to give to Jenny—
let Jenny know Uncle JT still has the magic coin we found together.
I’m at peace if it should end this way.

Revelation

I looked down Cross Street—
Noticed the trees like pews:
All in a row wearing velvet hues of fall;
Inviting me to sit on the sanctuary of grass,
Below the tabernacled sky.
A chorus of geese in the choir loft.
Wind in the pulpit—
Whose rhetoric is an invitation
To look here, look there—
See what I have done, see what I am doing.
The vestry are each a giant spruce—bowing.
The great white oak is alive with joy
As he gives the reading for the day.
And the peace—
Ushered down the isle by the sun itself.