Posting something a bit different today :). I’m not sure if this qualifies as poetry, but here you go:
The Closet
Rachel Starr Thomson
Written at the Magnificat Retreat in Guelph, February 12, 2011
Here I sit
In my deep dark closet
Where the plaster peels
And reveals
Wallpaper that was ugly when they put it up
And is even worse now.
Here I sit
Wishing
For wind in my sails (I dream of sails)
I’d leave
But I’m hung up on all the nails.
Jesus, help me renovate
You pick the paint, I’ll spread it
We’ll pull off the paper!
Down with plaster!
Give me a hammer
We’ll pull all the nails.
Silly child . . .
Come out.
But Jesus, we’ve not fixed it yet!
And it’s not so terribly bad.
The walls will look great in yellow
There are ways to clean up mold
We’ll pull out the nails or pound ’em in
New plaster, no rust—
Child, get out of the closet!
Get out of the whole rotting house.
You can’t fix death.
Get out.
But Lord—oh fine, I’m coming.
But I still think—
Oh.
What is that?
That, my child, is sky,
Stretched over a green world,
Alight with a million stars,
Windows to heavens beyond,
Pulsing with song and with breath.
It’s . . . so much.
Yes.
When I said you would live,
When I said “All things new,”
When I said you would be free,
I didn’t mean the closet.
I meant this.
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