January is sticks against the sky,
Bare enough to reveal that
Some Spring buds
Will labor longer, having
To push out and aside last Fall’s
Leaves that never fell.

In all their birthing fight to emerge,
Will the soft, bound shoots exclaim
To the lingering husks,
“Are you kidding me?
I have to overcome you?”

Yes, of course. Beauty
Must
Be pushed through a sieve of strife to ever
Be born.

This sky – white, forsaken –
Is Beauty’s stirrup.
To wait for a sunny day
Is to decide
Not to obey the
Daunting call to
Bear.

This is my front yard. Today.
Red medley,
Green interruption.
Redness painted, redness draped,
Redness flung, Green interjected.
Looking at it begins the hunger pang, the
Longing for the perfect, the true,
For the know-and-be-known.
The red and green are keen, whetted,
I can taste them on the back of my tongue.

Like seared steak or tannin,
Or basil-oiled asparagus, the
Red and green
Water my eyes, and
All my cells want more, more, a
Deep gulp, an endless communion.

These reds and these greens pull me to the
Seated One, to speak His language without
Words, to open my mouth, awestruck, and silently
Point to the reds and the greens and to me
And to Him. And He gets me and smiles.

He smiles and is
Holy light and I want only to stand
In Him in the way required – holy, too.
And so my red and green front yard
Shouts of Jesus who
Grafts his redness into me and
Colors me holy so I can recognize Him and
He me.
~

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied.” Matthew 5:6