question

How is this world good? How right?

the best of all possibilities 

of being,

the only way to gather up the threads

of all these lives?

Shall all be well?

Lord, through what dark and bloodstriped door 

are we borne, wailing

into a life of grace?

Must it always be this: the crushing, and the grief?

Are we, altogether, so stained

that only death makes way for better life?

Is this faith? To ask, at last, that we be eaten up

by our own appetites, by our own wounds

to make a place for better life?

Is our painful death a gift for what comes next?

You Who demanded the children too

be consecrated 

to You in death

even the children, Lord, 

and the beasts,

You Whose Name is mercy--

You do not let us forget it, 

they are written into scripture,

how Your demands glittered,

unrelenting,

biting and breakable as teeth.

I would not see my people crushed,

our children lost--

Is there no healing? 

Is this our last best hope:

A god who sees, who holds each tear, and who ordains

no less pain

I make my claim

against your righteousness: 

I rest

my case.