Hound of Heaven Hymns

Poetry list

injury time

FIRST HALF

the dying ember
of a fire
still hot
but spent
and the flames
yet to come
will be fanned
only by the spirit’s
breath in the
innermost heart
of love
there is both
hope and terrible
sadness
the grief of
change that
sees flesh die
and leave our
love airborne
testing consolation
and belonging
in the earthiness
of quotidian
breath
inspire
expire
I no longer know or
hope as ever before
and what is and
yet to come matches
nothing in our match

SECOND HALF

the match is
over or so
it seems to
me as I
mourn a death
so profound I
no longer know
in a world where
I feel lost and
bewildered incomplete
living on the other
side of death yet
breathing in the
air of now
an oxygen that
no longer
satisfies a
body and mind
struggling to be
free and see
the love
that has passed
out of sight into
the fragments of
uncertain
memory and the
prospect of a
future remade
beyond familiarity
in an intimacy
that is more than
real
so the match
continues but
for now it
hurts in
injury time
…amid the ashes