Smoke in Eden

She doubted this crisp air would ever fully warm. Her fingers tingled and newly shaved legs stung as the goose bumps spread up them. Not a human voice could be heard, and the birds were using this quiet to practice their song, each taking turns at the morning eulogy. She watched as the teenage neighbor, Jason, emerged in back of his house, how old was he now? Close to driving age. He reached for something behind the wood stacks and Jannie’s core tensed at once. An axe. He began cutting starter wood, and then returned inside. She almost laughed. Every person seemed a secret threat to her today, even the little boy she’d babysat in her teens. Within moments, the biting cold air was strung with the smell of smoke.

She closed her eyes and breathed the comforting scent in until her soul was on fire, and her nose was burning from the cold air. She refused to open her eyes. The cars, busily rushing to work on the hidden highway sounded like an ocean. She listened to the waves crashing as the tide came in. She could see her mom and dad lounging in beach chairs in the distance, her little brother Robert helping her build a mote for the sandcastle. The sand rubbed against her ankles and between her toes. They’d reminisced a lot lately about that family vacation; they’d spent a week together in Lincoln City, playing in the ocean and flying that little green kite.

She’d stay here all day, drinking her hot cup of coffee, forgetting the world, hidden in her mother’s secret garden. She didn’t need to think about the “details,” Robert said he’d take care of them all. The smoke in the air at once warmed her, brought her back by the fire, reading a book or watching a film with her parents. Her hair still wet from a nightly bath, her red flannel pajamas on. Then the smoke was ashy, cremating her past. Her nose stung, and her eyes blurred. The garden around her looked unkempt, and she realized her tears were the first good watering the flowers had received all year.

When she’d rung Suzanne yesterday, she’d been told to take the week off. “I’ll call the other girls and we’ll take turns filling in. Don’t worry, just take the time you need.” Yet, work sounded filling, and Lord she needed something, something more than an old garden and creaking porch swing, than birds squealing and an imaginary ocean. She needed her mother. Her mother who could make any mess a garden.

When they’d moved here she was only 6, starting second grade at a new school. Her mother had adopted the field of weeds and slowly created an Eden. Eden. Her mother always belonged in a garden, it’s where she knew to love. It’s where she’d held Jannie and promised her she’d make new friends. It’s where her mother told her the news. Her mother wasn’t here to hold her now. The smoke lifted from the chimney and reminded Jannie she’d better call Robert, let him know she was okay, and ask when the will was to be read.


[This is a piece of flash fiction I wrote last week for my Creative Story Writing course. I turned it in today...]

When I Lay Me Down to Sleep

When I lay me down to sleep, I know my soul the Lord sets free. My dreams unlocked, with His thoughts speak. They listen to the songs of frogs, then tell the tale all evening long. And when my tears lead me to sleep, His feed my night with passions deep. Brought by raven and hidden means, I find the place my heart must need. The place where I can lay me down, and trust the tree that forever frowns. The tree He bore upon His back, to see His tears drip like its sap, falling from it's tallest stand to feed my heart, grafted deeply in its path.


[I had a picture something like this in my head for the past week, so I set out to sketch it on Friday, later I wondered about the story it might tell, and this free write was the result. It's not meant to be taken too seriously, just have fun with it.]

The Measure of Your Love

What is the real measure of Your love- how deep, how far, how wide? Could I discover it's boundaries, it's limits where the affections cease and the praises are undue? I'll pull up the pages of history, search for the woman you failed to set free. I'll become a hungry student of the truth, open the fearful mysteries too great for the faithless to question, too bold for the weak to see. And yet, I'll never find the end. I'll rediscover Columbus- profess the proof- the world is round! And all my searching's brought me back to this very same ground: He is love, and here I stand.

The Heart of the Storm

Skin on skin
He’s the God of Contention
Moving within


Seeking and stirring
The Heart of the Storm
My heart’s embracing


Have you seen Him?
Have you held Him?
Beheld Him, the Heart of the Storm?

(September 2008, Sunday Morning)

Amazing Grace

“I once was lost” so I hear it sung,
Then some God sent into the world, a Son.
My soul accost as the man was hung
Now all my sins, my shame and pain, undone.

I sing the words. At first my mouth just speaks,
Her words rehearsing time.
How sweet the sound of the grace she seeks
For crimes far less than mine.

This ebony, I call my life.
I want to know what she means by free.
Eternity, absence of strife.
Forgiveness for a sinner, so unclean.


The lame can run.
The blind- at last we finally see.


(February 2008)

When I Saw You

“Who am I that you should know my name?
My fragile thoughts and tiny frame.”

“Oh but my Mighty eye has seen you all the same.
And when I saw, I came.
For you are just as I had dreamed,
And you are worthy as I deem.
The rivers of my love alas have found their stream”


“I have heard of your fame.
Our mothers sang of a man untamed, unrestricted, unashamed
Healing the broken, raped, and lame.
They said He’d wash away my crimson stains,
These bloodied sheets, these dried up veins.
They said, “Court His favor, and when He comes, remain”


“When I saw you, my body was crushed and broken
My hands were cut, my side pierced, my life a token
Of affection, the price demanded, the judgment spoken.
And faithfully I made the shut gates, open.

All this I did when I saw you.”


“But all I have to offer is myself, bruised and broken, naked and untrue.”


“In My Lover’s eyes you are undone, and in My arms all things are new.”

Through the Pane

Inside the house, we’re safe.
The weather tumbles, fights, and fumbles,
But we must not feel it in this place.
Life crumbles, bites, and we stumble,
But we must not show it on our face.

It’s easiest when left inside,
There’s no struggle to explain it all.
You say it’s best if just denied,
You’d really best contain this fall.
But still- the tide swells deep and wide.

Your blurry view stares through the pane,
The clouds roll dark and the figures fight.
Flowers, sunshine, memories marred by the rain;
There’s no one daring outdoors tonight.
And hidden stars say the future steers the same.

For curious or desperate, you can’t quite tell
Nor dare you to decide, for if you wait
You might not follow this intrinsic bell.
So, with one stride, you unlatch the only gate
Run outside, and scream and yell!

The rain falls soft and warm.
The trees rage, but their roots are deep and strong.
Life isn’t what you had seen to be the storm.
Hope is here, only hidden by the pane for so long
Now, the dawn begins to fight and form.

(August 2 2007, Written for a friend.)