How poor am I?
No one suspects my poverty,
For I hide it
‘Neath empty bravado.
All show,
The fool fooling all
But myself.
Yet, sometimes,
I , too, believe
My haughty claims.
How poor am I?
Copyright Joann Nelander 2012
All rights reserved
Category Archives: Art
You Are a New Creation
You are a new creation.
You hear the words,
Even delight at them.
Smiling and free
You run off to play,
Tucking the Words away.
Think to steal a day.
Take out the Words.
Turn them in your heart.
With fingers of prayer,
Feel their frame,
Touch them again.
The Words do not come alone.
He Who spoke them
Descends into your heart,
Repeats His refrain,
Speaks Love again.
You are a new creation.
Each time the Words are spoken,
The creature takes on a glow,
Exists in Time
Holiness accentuated,
Grace effectuated.
Pondered and plumbed,
Their depths revealed,
An anchor of Truth
Makes them the bedrock
Of your being.
With Love’s true eyes
All is new for the seeing.
You are a New Creation.
This post in linking to week 41 poetry picnic
Just One More Day
A Nation cries
In want of Thee.
Time hurries,
All the while consuming,
That which our hands have built.
Our plenty devoured
In furnaces of desire.
“More, give us more,
The engines roar. ”
You wait,
That we might recognize
Your reign.
Your sun rises on each new day.
You are patient.
Wait, wait, wait….
Obedience is not our way.
We turn only blind eyes
And misprize chastisement’s scourge.
We know only
The gates of Hell demand,
Demand our sacrifice,
Human sacrifice.
We do not deny them.
No place too sacred to invade.
Give the gods their due,
For they pay our way.
After all, we are only clay,
Living to be merry
One more day.
You speak of Love and Eternity.
Our bellies cry out “Now”
“Who needs Your Throne!”
Give us bread without God Alone.
Our way,
Just one more day.
Just One More Day AUDIO
©2012 Joann Nelander All rights reserved
Can Heaven Be Made More Glorious
If heaven can be made more glorious,
Make it so, my Lord.
If the honor and respect, I show,
Sinner, though I am,
Can render
Your saints more glory,
For the light
They shine on men,
Make it so, my Lord.
If the blood of martyrs,
Can again be received
Before Your throne,
Mingled with the Blood of Christ,
That coursed their veins,
And flowed out
As rivers.
To wash the Nations
And praise Your Holy Name,
Make it so, my Lord.
All time is Now
In Your Eternity.
Your battles,
Though waging on earth,
Have all been won,
And presented to You
In Your Son.
"Thy Kingdom come!"
You make it so , O my Lord.
©2012 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved
Panoramas of NYC Churches by Richard Silver
Haunting Silence
Time to name the monster
Who stirs at night.
Who lives within
To hide our sin.
Time to make room,
In memory’s caverns
Rather than banish
What simply won’t vanish.
You had a choice once
That gave birth to phantoms
Making you live your choice
Silencing not its voice.
The monster lives and grows
Curled and caved in your heart
When the Light goes out
It walks about.
Its countenance a disfigurement,
Frightful yet your own.
Its dwelling through the years
Fraught with reticence and tears.
Has it no right
No place of rest?
When the day is done,
No place in the sun.
Most monsters are but part
Of our fallen selves
Standing in the way
Of each new day.
The way out
Is also within.
Give the chimera a name.
Acknowledge its claim.
Give the silence life
For the living,
For what you kill,
Haunts you still.
Time to embrace
And wrap the past in Mercy.
Give it a womb,
Instead of a tomb.
©2012 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved
Be Holy! 