O, son,
Whom I now hold in my arms,
Though I, from head to toe,
Am a broken man...

...I pray, only,
That you will find embrace
In the Arms
Holding me

.

Life is short
And time is borrowed;
“If freed today,
I’ll preach tomorrow”

...spoken from
His prison cell,
The faithful one
Who conquered hell

When kings and men
Put him to flight
He stood his ground
Without a fight

And gladly took
To shackles – chains –
To prove to all
His Faith remained

---

Life is short
And time is borrowed;
“If freed today,
I’ll preach tomorrow”

See, he had been a
Prisoner, freed,
From far more
Fearful enemies

The first of which
Was his own flesh:
A death which died
Its death in Death

The Death of the
Triumphant King –
The Holy One –
The King of kings!

---

The One who
Traded life for Life –
Who gave it all
And took the knife…

…that he would sing
Without a sorrow:
“If freed today,
I’ll preach tomorrow!”

.

Among the myrtles –
Yes, in between
A green, so fertile! –
A King was seen

Atop His stallion –
A chestnut red –
As His battalion
Patrolled ahead

Throughout all the earth
Both far and wide
Observing the mirth
But birthed by pride

The report came back,
“At rest! At rest!
By behest of Black!
Asleep; possessed!”

---

Among the myrtles –
Yes, in between
The deep, the gurgle! –
A King was seen

Atop His stallion –
A chestnut red –
As His battalion
Then stormed ahead

Throughout all the earth
Both far and wide
To silence the mirth
But birthed by pride

The report came back,
“Alas! Alas!
The quake; the crack!
Judgment has passed!”

---

Among the myrtles –
Yes, in between
A green, so fertile! –
A King was seen

Atop His stallion –
A chestnut red –
As His battalion
Awoke the dead

Throughout all the earth
Both far and wide
His reign making mirth
As death had died!

The report came back,
“At last! At last!
The captives are back!
Returned at last!”

---

At last! At last!
The captives are back!
Returned at last!
Returned at last…

.

We waited – waited – waited…
For that which
We knew
Not

Just killed the time till killing time…
With small and
Pointless
Talk

We seemed to ride upon a dream…
That faded with
Slow with
Time

And in the end, the curtains closed…
Without a
Reasoned
Rhyme

.

Weightless, he was
Bound to none –
A wispy, wandering
Wind

He danced upon his days
Like waves,
Without a ripple
In the end…

‘Cause times when he
Would come too close,
Feet nearly touching
Ground

He’d hide away
Into his dream
And scream
Without a sound

---

Weightless, he was
Bound to none –
A wispy, wandering
Wind

He felt no wonder
‘bout his life;
Nothing felt
Magnificent…

‘Cause nothing could
Command his heart
Or pull him down
To stand

So ‘ever he just
Drifted there
In fog and
Foreign land

---

Weightless, he was
Bound to none –
A wispy, wandering
Wind

He settled for a
Fairytale, but
Woke up feeling
Grim…

‘Cause deep within
The darkest depth –
An abyss of Truth
Suppressed

He knew that there was
More than this:
The “Ever-Expanding
Nothingness”

---

But…weightless, he was
Bound to none –
A wispy, wandering
Wind

.

Some of life's
Sweetest joys
Are intermingled with
Bitter sorrows,

Reminding me that

My hope lies
Above the horizon,
And my fears
Lag long behind

.

Part 1: JOY & SORROW

It was around 3am…

When I learned that the
Sweetest Joy
Could, simultaneously, be the
Bitterest Sorrow

As I held my newborn son, Ezra
Close to my chest [Joy]
As he was (inconsolably) screaming his head off
Just below my right ear! [Sorrow]

But, oh, Ezra himself is a single joy
Who outweighs 10,000 sorrows!

And his parents CANNOT IMAGINE
Life without him

(Though our bodies ache to know, again,
The comforts
And rest
Our past life afforded us)

---

Part 2: THE BABIES ON THE PORCH

We COULD NOT WAIT to introduce Ezra
To everyone (and anyone)!

And the first time we took him outside
Onto the front porch
To meet the neighbors,
The most curious thing happened:

The one-and-a-half year old neighbor girl, Remi –
Short for “Remington” (yes, named after the rifle!) –
Hobbled over with her Daddy,
And pointed to Ezra, and said, “Baby!”

And I smiled
And said
(In a high-pitched, baby-talk voice),
“Yeah, he’s a Baby…”

---

Part 3: “BABIES” TO BABIES

Later, I was replaying this interaction
In my head –
Amused by the irony
Of the situation:

That this one-and-a-half year old BABY
Identified a thing
Smaller and younger than HERSELF
As a “Baby!”

And I wondered if she knows that
SHE too is a Baby –

If she ever looks in the mirror,
And points to HERSELF,
And says,
“Baby!”

---

Part 4: BABY GIRLS & BABY DOLLS

And then, I recalled
Having witnessed this ironic phenomenon before…

…As I watched our friend’s little girl, Addy,
Pushing her baby doll in a toy stroller
Around her house
As if it was her Baby

And I thought about how amazing it is
That “pre-programmed” into little girls
Is the nurturing and emotional concern of
A Mother,

And that, it’s not uncommon to find
Baby girls
Pretending to be Mommy’s to their
Baby dolls

---

Part 5: THIS “BABY”

And then, I thought about myself
In relation to my Heavenly Father –

Who, in His Infinite Character,
And Bigness,
And Greater-Than-Us-Ness,
Is so unutterably HIGH above (and beyond) me…

And a thought popped into my head –
In the form of an absurd question:

“Are we all just ‘playing with dolls’?”

.