I wake in the night
and speak to you in tongues.
I don’t know what it is
that falls from my lips,
a plea or appeal,
a wanting for things to be different
than what they are,
for the release of fear.
So that my tongue moves
and my lips open and shut,
my body gently rocks.
And this is the way
I reach for you.
How I stand on the street and signal for help.
And the way you arrive.
You to whom night is the same as day,
and summer and winter both yours.
Who has made a path,
if not through the sea,
to the sanctuary of your heart.
That the peace I’ve sought
now ripples out from my mouth,
and breaks upon the shoreline of myself,
rushing in as a body of water,
a change of tide.
Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
February 2021
‘Day and night belong to you, you made the starlight and the sun. All nature is within your hands, you make the summer and the winter too.’
Psalm 74:16-17
Living Tree Poetry 