Insidious Redeemed

Image credit: Ransom Riggs

by Kelly Wegscheid

The hand that touched upon my chest

That penetrated as it firmly pressed

That sent its heat fiercely through my unsuspecting breast

It wrapped my heart in fingers bold

It sent heat waves through my veins once cold

And seeped into my blood like stories never told

Then sprung a root (or was it thorn?)

With tentacles like seedlings born

Which wrapped 'round and 'round and up and down each and every cell forlorn

Its energy came coursing true

Wrapping 'round and 'round and through and through

It didn't know, but tried to wash away all thoughts of You

Its vines… No, roots... No, thorns…

Wound tight and pulled and tangled

Until, thick, they brought on darkness raging

With a passion raw, seeking light, it scratched and clawed

Another piercing of my wounded heart

Willful ripping of my Creator’s art

Undone by its own unleashed lust

Then bursting out, it found next sought

And flew away, left me for naught

Its hand upon my chest I had not fought

In darkest core still hid my heartbeat

Smoldering with hope I could no longer feed

Its blood and breath and life sucked out like a gasp of heat

Survival dictates preserve thyself

So with grace and peace and clarity

One fell swoop loped off that hand and shriveled what remained

All foreign, ugly, dead debris

Instantly became ashes

Which turned to mulch to feed my hope

Just how the Good Book says it happens

Am I a Man?

The following is a guest post by my daughter. It is a two-voice poem and is in response to the novel "All is Quiet on the Western Front." The voice alternates between the main character, Paul, at the start of the war and at the end of the war.

Am I a Man? 

by Dana Q

Photo: Album cover "The Young Veteran" Ted Bee

I am a man

I was a man

Who has a loving family

Whose family no longer knows him

I am a young man

I am a man aged by loss

Who loves to escape into fiction

Who can't escape from his reality

I am strong and capable

I am weak and wounded

I am a man who will fight for his country 

I am a man who was beaten by war

My friends and I will fight together

I am the last to die of my longtime friends

We will always protect each other

I tried to save them but I couldn't

Together, we'll be heroes

Alone, I am forgotten

My life has just begun

I don't know why I'm still alive

This Side of the Pit

photo from merseawildlife.blogspot.com

My hand emerged

From the rain soaked ash,

From the muck.

This time, it didn't plead or yearn

And sink back in despair.

This time it stretched, breathed,

And landed firmly on a craggy rock.

It smiled. My hand smiled.

It knew what had just happened.

It didn't know ahead of time

it was going to grasp the rock.

But it knew now,

the way only hands can know,

The inevitable unfolding of events

That was sure to follow.

The force that caused

My hand to fiercely grip

Next made my arm to flex and coil.

This arm that hung dormant for many lives

With no resistance,

Now surged with ambition.

My body follows

Rising up.

Emerging from the deep.

My leg lifts a foot.

My foot finds placement on the rock.

The solid rock.

How free. How firm. How present

Is the rock.

I stand.

I stand!

I stand on solid rock.

I stand solid on the rock!

I walk and

Almost don't look back.

But I want to remember

What it looks like from this side of the pit.

In Which Heroes Are All Dead

And the heavens opened
And half of all the people were swallowed.
The other half.

And half of the remaining ran
Forever. They didn't stop.
They're still running.

And half of those that stood
paralyzed, eventually decayed.

Others sat down and cried
until their tears were salt ran dry.

Some started counting rocks.
They don't know why.
They sort and stack and rearrange.

I was standing, watching, when I finally woke.
I saw it all and did nothing.
I'm still standing. But awake.

A few, I see, dance.
I want to dance, but I stand.
Their dance is not of joy, but to chase away the fear.

Silent movies play in my head
In which heroes are all dead.
But I'm awake. And here.

Glory or Death

[Glenwood Cemetery, Houson, TX, bookloversinc.com]

Secret lives, secret hearts, I see
Unfolded and enlightened.
Angel eyes of wisdom and purity have
Brought me grace and weariness together.
Even angst against a holiness.
Dawdling in the temporal seems to
Strip time from a greater good,
From destiny,
From almighty eternity itself,
As if that were possible.
Indeed the lens has flipped, revealing
A mission of mining eternity
From this very mundane.
Oh, for that to be my destiny!
Is anything mundane,
Really?
From One perspective,
It's all either Glory or Death.

If We Had Known

by Kelly Wegscheid

If grandma had known how lies transform into shadows, dark and dense…

If grandma had known that secrets are seeds that grow like sequoias - immense…

If grandma had known that a tiny piece of every sin would cling to those she loved…

Would she have had the strength to stand in light and ask for mercy from above?

If grandpa had known his daughter’s heart was fragile and afraid…

If grandpa had known his words could cure the aches of night and day…

If grandpa had known that grace and love really did pour through his eyes…

Would he have spoke more frequently of love and strength before he died?

If I had known my actions then would bring me to my knees,

And make me cry out every night to stop the pain, Lord, please…

If I had known the things God knows back when my life was spinning…

Would I have stood and had the strength to keep those lives from ending?

Will my children know the pain incurred from those who nurse the lies?

Will my grand-kids feel the secrets old that grip so many lives?

For them to know, when day is done, that light can heal all shame,

Someone has to be the one that shares the power of Your Name.