Sun bursts through banks of rolling pink and laughs all gold.
Another dawn explodes with hope.
A day like any other, with plans and expectations.
I eat my oatmeal milked and sweet with slice of amber buttered.
Steaming tea in hand, I sit.
A crow catches draft and sails above corn stubble in bowl of blue.
Two geese fly tandem across the field.
A robin whistles from a branch, and pine boughs sway in breeze.
Red buds pop, and a lone wave of dirty snow spills from garden edge.
Music fills the air.
The land is alive.
And yet my heart is numb.
My spirit is subdued.
I cannot fathom.
Across the continent, across the ocean lies death and destruction.
Despair and desperation.
Power loosed from fractured earth, and hope swallowed by the sea.
Dreams crash in roiling black.
Pain and suffering, and still more fear.
Broken, bloated bodies.
Tattered hearts.
Cold and hungry souls.
Weeping on the rubble.
Lost.
Where are you?
Where are You?
Where is the music?
Water pours from sky.
Overwhelmed, I cannot cry.
And it does not seem right to laugh.
It seems wrong to delight in beauty.
Words fall hollow.
I groan for Japan.
Don’t let those who look to You in hope be discouraged by what they see.
May those who seek be found and find.
Rebuild the wrecked and bind the broken.
Pluck the pain.
Enfold the lonely.
For You are Hope itself.
And there is nowhere else to run.
Overwhelm the land with Your tsunami of grace and love and mercy.
And let the sun of hope rise again.
Groaning for Japan,
**********
Dedicated to L.L. Barkat who encourages us
to express our hearts through the power of poetry.
**********
Question: How are you coping?
Save me, O God,
for the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in the miry depths,
where there is no foothold.
I have come into the deep waters;
the floods engulf me.
I am worn out calling for help;
my throat is parched.
My eyes fail,
looking for my God.
~Psalm 69:1-3 (NIV)
And me? I pray.
God, it’s time for a break! God, answer in love!
Answer with your sure salvation!
~Psalm 69:13 (MSG)
Spilling these crumbs of pain with Emily
Linking late with Jason’s Warrior Poet Circle.
Sandra, thank you for sharing this. Pain finds a home in poetry. It has found a home in yours.
You are such a blessing.
Amazing how the beauty and the brokenness can exist simultaneously in this world. Either one can seem far away then come knocking on our door without warning. Definitely praying with you.
Thanks Sandra.
Without warning. So true.
Absolutely, heart-wrenchingly, painfully beautiful! A moment that needs to be shared with a waiting, watching world desperate for answers, for hope, for God.
Thank you, Cindee. He is our high tower.
Answer with your sure salvation!
I love this verse. In fact both the pictures and the progression of this poem remind me of a Psalm. Beginning with praise for the beauty of His works, turning to pain and petition, resolving in hope based on who He is and a deep request that He would bring all of who He is into what is painful.
Thanks, Joybird.
“That He would bring all of who He is into what is painful.” I love that.
We’re all groaning, Sandra.
Beautiful post.
Thank you, Glynn.
The Spirit interprets these groans and sighs…Only He knows what is required. Thank you for this, Sandra. Just beautiful.
And I’m grateful for that. Thanks, sweet friend.
And in the pain, there is Love. There is God. Waiting. Patiently to embrace us in pain and sorrow, joy and peace.
Beautiful poem and photos.
Amen.
What a beautiful deeply felt post. The beauty of spring against the backdrop of despair in Japan is quite an irony. I don’t know what we would do with the trouble in this world if we didn’t have God to look to, to pray to, to groan to. Thank you for putting into words what we all feel.
Kim, I treasure you. Thank you for coming by and taking the time to comment. I don’t know what we would do without Him either.
Somehow it’s the blackness of that water that haunts me. “Dreams crash in roiling black.”
I know that God hears our groaning. I know He sees all of this and I know that God cares. And I wonder where – exactly – would we be without Him?
Lost. We would be lost without Him.
laughs all gold…
while you weep, we are blessed by your heart-words, friend. this is one of the most beautiful poems i’ve read in awhile. and he is in it… his heart, his love for his people, is here. thank you.
Beautiful, Sandy. I can turn off the TV, but the images still come. It’s all so overwhelming.
Lord, I add my “amen” to this prayer, and ask You to give us all the compassion to groan with the pain of others.