What do you want me to do with this morning God?
That shines through the blinds
that shines through my shuttered heart
What do I do with a sun that still rises?
On us, whose joy wavers as a candle in the wind,
on those, whose joy has for a moment, been snuffed out.
What do we do with fear that lurks at the edges?
As dark clouds that threaten to bring more rain
as though we hadn’t yet had enough, of the dark.
Yet the sun rises
shedding all vestiges of where she has been,
illuminating the shadows to reveal them as naught
but things that take on power in the absence of the light.
Things that have always been,
but that we too can brush off, at the arrival of the dawn.
For hope and love too, have always been,
and resilience and prayer, and hearts
that constantly strive for good.
What do we do with this morning God?
That shines through the blinds,
and breaks apart our shuttered hearts.
We rise like the sun,
and we shed our light into the dark.
Ana Lisa de Jong
October 2017
(Written after the concert shooting in Las Vegas)
Image: Luca Bravo (Maui, Hawaii), courtesy of Unsplash
Living Tree Poetry 