Dread.

I feel it still.
Laying

at the base
of my throat
and throbbing dully,
quietly slumbering

with one leering eye
cocked open always
and leaning towards
my heart.

My heart…
chipped and worked,
touched and chilled
by the frozen fingers
of dread and

shards of it lay scattered
at my feet clear,
jagged glimmering
broken.

I step to the rail and look back
peering intently into the fog
thick and lingering, but
2014 is shrouded, hidden
and if I hadn’t lived it
I wouldn’t have believed it
was anything more
than a dream.

It was a year that hollowed out
thinned out, emptied out
but never declared its intention.

I don’t think it ever knew
or if it even could.

It was a year
without windows
but many doors
and ladies
and tigers.

There is more to life than meets the eye,
more than can be measured
by the senses or a census
but this morning there is just
the fog behind and the early dark
ahead awaiting dawn.

and Dread

and my heart shaped
in its cold hands
and God’s Warm Heart.

Across the prow of my ship
the rain slants and glints
in the deck lights (dark lights)
like silvery needles
sent to stitch
the past and future
together in this moment.

I think of Presences.

Emptiness…
Nothing…
Silences…
Absences…

Love…
Memories…
Hope…
Them…

there and here with me
in time and triumph,
tears and tragedy
but only One
does my heart
awaken in this dawn
and set afire tears
upon my face

a God of grace,
a God of love,
a God of…justice?

Justice.
I don’t even know where
to start with that!

I face forward
into dawn’s early light

empty,
confused,
seeking,

the way of grace
not effort!