My Hezekiah

The living, the living,
humble life demands little notice.
Demands influence existence,
but in the instants between
abuse and abusing, we are given
a chance to regain our breathing.
Yet you are taking my chance away.
You are taking my breath away.

And what can I say?
Lord, come to my aid?
From unchanging to unchanging,
You spoke, and so as I know
You, rigid and but honest:
Where is my hope?

While I walk humbly, with voice
like a thrush and otherwise hushed.
With gentle hand my living soul
is brushed like breathless,
heartless, formless dust
behind your back, oh the grounded lack
spirit to fill their lungs
and exhale Your name aloud.

With eyes that roam the fields
and hands that harvest earth,
do You ever pause, do You reflect,
do You consider the swept up speck
that longs for life, to sing alive,
that has wept and wept and wept?

Now what is the melody coming down
as the sun backs up the ten steps,
to dry the tears where I sat and wept.
Restoration, light through the vines
round the almond tree, light for me.

And so have You, have You changed?
Or have You heard a mourning dove
moving toward its final evening,
and have You wept?

Patient, til dawn, You have taken a broken song
and put it to strings,
new life to its wings, and made it rise.
The perfect renewal of a rhythmic chorus,
taken up by the first tree and still
sung by steaming fig leaves,
the perfect crescendo, the reason to hope.

Yes, the Word of the Lord stands forever,
but it bends to bring voice.
For the grave cannot praise you,
cannot remember the sin You've left behind,
cannot even hope You'll change Your mind.
Beyond and above, majesty misunderstood,
the living, the living --- they praise You!