show me your glory

there are tear-ridden days
when soundless lips
wrenched wide open
mouth again and again,
i want to understand.
would you show me
the fulness of your plan,
just let me read it all,
straight from your eyes,
as a man speaks to a friend?

but you know my frame
maybe this wracking pain
is but the backside of glory.
who can bear it up and live?
i beg to see his face
do i know what i ask?
but he hides me instead
in the cleft and shields me
from a certain death
and still holds me near.
lord, i won't complain anymore
when your love covers me.

the work of dreams

every day i awake a new adam

the dream and the hand of God

having labored an eternal hour long

upon my unswept wilderness.

i lay my body in a grave of sand

let my stormworn soul settle still.

then he comes, traces in the dust

ciphers of mercy i strain to understand.

why do they lie behind my memory

once morning beams light my eyes?

maybe a secret name to be given,

or a someday body to be risen,

will hold the imprint of very good.