Lenten Poem-a-Week Project: Week 3

My peace I give you

Morning 

In each thick 
goodnight I kneel before You 
to lament my knots, my sorrows, the next 
damned war. I hold 
a wobbling bolus 
of fear in my palm, and point 
to each pocked woe.

Today I prayed upon waking 
in weak morning light, on this 
ordinary day, unkempt 
in flannel and cotton. 
Peace descended 
like a still, insensible animal 
laid on my lap, a strange 
species I don’t know how to take care of. 

I feared its dissipation. I wanted 
to leash it as though it were mine 
and prone to running, a thing to wrangle
like it was something else but pure grace. 

This grace! This grace given 
to She Who Dances with Chaos, your 
Queen of the Anxious, your Emissary of Worry. 
I have excelled in the Art of Apprehension, and 
drank it like an elixir. 

Lord, may I come know 
this unfamiliar creature: Warm, 
expansive
boundless and untouchable peace.

May I learn 
to embrace it lightly, to know 
You are in it and of it.  

--Kristen McHenry