Sin
runs cold down skin
rends through bones
yet binds us like kin
held like precious stones

We
ruin all we touch
with hands scrubbed clean
down to the rind
still soaked in crime

God
bound by his rule
stays in somber sleep
though weeps for the day
when our ashes spawn green

Cry
to ears stone deaf
and eyes gouged out
that wanders the earth
til day's reckoning

Yet
hope shines through
meek and radiantly
gently through the cracks
of guilt-stained hands