“I found God in the names: Heaven, Angel, Isaiah meaning “God saves”, Okesene  meaning oxygen in Samoan—like the breath of God in our lungs.”

a leading prayer
Jesu, this little work,
as askew, may it
always lean
to You. 

Who grief was isn’t who she is today, like an old paint can that hasn’t been used in years you start to forget who grief was as the paint dries. But when the paint is fresh again the smells, the colors are all too familiar to not remember. That old friend is back and what you knew of her has changed, you have changed. You guys get to relearn about each other again. Who grief was isn’t who she is today and neither are you.

I like to think there are bibliotecas in Heaven full of wonder & treasures untold. Battles of the angels, stories of Jesus’ love, narratives of the Father’s grandeur, adventures of The Spirit’s journey with mortals.

Three brothers born beautiful boys brown eyes witnessing and holding pain unknown yet present sorrow no father no thought that life could be anything more than death of freedom prison for life

A visual poem by Lisa Engdahl.

We stand proud

With black armbands

Mourning the end

Of our community

written by a sunflower
who knows nothing

of integrity, only how to face
a storm when it comes.

When I wake up in a city That yesterday was strange Today I can imagine That I might have place Amidst the bustling crowds, Strange sites and foreign sounds With the help of google maps I begin to find my way around

ENTRE VOCES QUE CANTAN EN MEDIO DEL SONIDO DEL MAR. CADA CUAL DE DIFERENTE LUGAR. UNIENDO SUS VOCES EN LA VERDADERA FELICIDAD. UNIENDO SUS VOCES EN LA VERDADERA FELICIDAD.

(CHS>MFE) // Could it be that the immigrant narrative is a physical reminder of the saved sojourner's story—people of an upside down kingdom?

Entre gotas de color y sueños de esperanza, Cada sonrisa y mano extendida, Entre cada amanecer y atardecer, Así es cada uno de ellos, entre sus similitudes y multiculturalidad.

A feast is laid on the table today, greeting, filling us after long hours, no—years on a way. Where we’ve come from, where we’ve been. Places set around what’s been begun. You call us around. You crouch quite a ways
down to show us how washing feet lowers and lifts up what the law says. Then breaking bitter herbs and grain’s sown sweetness, for days when I groan

My son, he’s three, and He wants to go home. To see his teachers, he says. He is speaking, now slowly—I want to go to A-fri-ka—as if we aren’t getting it. To Uganda, he says, eyes insistent, pointing to the sky we will fly across to get back there. He is pointing to where home is, the way some kids point to the sky when asked: Where is heaven?

In the living room the balcony door yawns open And evening coolness sweeps in The kid downstairs is smoking again like an acolyte swinging a censer Thick incense fills the room encircling me Suddenly I am aware of holiness in this place In a moment my eyes can see What always was, only gently hidden Love and Presence fill this block hover over it

hunched over the cinder block, we coax out the baby possum,

orphaned and delicate. in a towel we wrap her, set her next to a

mother in the form of a hot water bottle. when

early the next morning we find her gone, we

Beauty is subjective. Beauty is something new in the normalized. Beauty is something in the less prioritized.

hot afternoon sky & the track is two frowns or two smiles glued in a quarter mile oval across the dry grass, crunchy lipped