Living Tree Poetry

Oh Lord you are too Holy.
How do we become clean?

Not by our own efforts
do you assure me,
but by immersing ourselves
into the holy stream.

Oh holy stream,
wash over my stains.

So that when my God looks at me
he sees not the dirt of my hands;
not my sullied self
but one he has loved and made.

One he’s loved and died for,
that my life might be reclaimed.

That I might image him as polished silver
or a river stone set in sand.
Maybe even a jewel,
alight as the morning star in his palm.

Or simply as one that walks with him
in the garden, again.

Ana Lisa de Jong
August 2017