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,
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

Full of Grace

In my imperfection
I offer you the perfect.
Full of Grace,
Take up my cause.

Gracious God,
You have prepared grace
And holiness of life
For all men ,
Yet we are not ready
For Your wonders.

We delay.
We play with idols,
And take for granted
The universe that engulfs us,
As though it founded itself
And raised its own pillars.
We swim in a sea of plenty,
As though it is infinite.

Fool that I am,
May the Wise Virgin,
Trim my lamp
To light my way.

Holy Vessel of all graces
Waiting in Your labor
To bring us forth
And give us the Divine Life
Held in your treasury
For the Day
The Promised will descend from heaven
Into my soul,
And carry me,
With all your children
To that place of safe repose.

The imperfect, washed clean
In the waters of New Birth
Rising perfect with resplendent Light,
As swaddling and infusion,
From the God of the great breast,
And the womb of the Chased Virgin Immaculate.

© 2012 Joann Nelander