winter journal

I didn't categorize this as poetry because it's too long, and if it was a poem I would try to have some sort of understandable progression of thought instead of popping along from one thing to another.  In short, I don't really know what this is :)

Today the sun warms the chilled February birdsong,

yesterday the fog drifted sleepily

I'm having trouble keeping up with this steady passing of time

life continually slipping on past

the days a blurring of the calendar, 

trying for more sleep, more food, to remember my weakness

but it would be much handier to be invincible,
to have enough time to plan and dream and learn

the nights are too short but my dreams are flashbacks

moments and faces I've treasured and sometimes forgotten

it's a strange place to be.

Oh Love, that will not let me go,

I rest my weary soul in Thee

Odd, bumping into that loneliness whenever I turn

but I have so so many to love

so many to cry for

and this humbling unassailable confidence 

that I am so loved.

Oh, the wonderful blood of Jesus

There are dark-eyed babies

and beautiful women limping 

through my head at 4:00AM

when I wake to this unsettling sense of homesickness

but I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger
traveling through this world of woe
there's no sickness, toil or danger
in that bright land to which I go
and home is the "tornado" of people in our converted-bowling-alley church after the service
home is that building with multiple cameras, multiple layers of locked doors,
to shelter its sacred contents
home is the sunshine through the iron windowpanes at CCEF morning prayer
home is my piano keyboard that grows a layer of dust faster than I expect it to
home is Christmas with my family by the fireside
home is the long table filled with soup-eaters before small group
home is anybody's baby in my arms
home is downtown Toronto through the dirty bus windows
home is green shoots poking through dark soil
home is my niece's smile, in person or on Skype
home is the flowers and teacups on my Oma's coffee table
home is my cousin's french press and steaks
home is the dip in the prairie grasses when you come over the hill to see the oaks and the graveyard and the community center and the elementary school and the little white church stake out my favorite town on the rez
home is hymns in four-part harmony
home is a latte on a Sunday afternoon
home is a beautiful thing
Oh, joy, that seekest me through pain
I cannot close my heart to thee
I trace the rainbow through the rain
and feel the promise is not vain
that morn shall tearless be