Everborn

feed me the wafer make me savor the juice.
save him, save her...turn me loose.
i am God's son, i am God's daughter.
i am choking on holy water.
i am evaporating slowly like the sweat
from the side of a glass of iced tea.
write my story on a scroll and hide it in the temple,
write my story on a plank of paper
and like a song still yet to be heard,
my story is told in the spaces between the words.
clothe me with holes...
at the tops of socks at the end of sleeves
at the bottom of pants.
teach me to write my own story myself
and to read the book on the shelf
then teach my feet to dance.
set my organs side by side next to bare bones.
let them all pay courtesy in the court of the
peace that passes all understanding.
push lungs into my chest so moans can be moved
from my throat to the throne of God
on wings of angels who are not strangers
to my version (from red altars we are altered
with violent volition. teach me right from
wrong before i enter this windowless prison
with walls of iron.) they have been where i am
now with no voice
and have made the same choice...the best choice...
the only choice.
we chose the salvation of God's Son
                      and received freedom.
i am struggling reaching for sleep every night
and all they do is ferry prayers across the lake
and sing and rejoice every day all day.
so set strong arms to my shoulders link them with
lengths of muscle and sinew and knit in the spirit
is the sin we always knew.
set hands to the arms with a blessing from God
                          that they first do no harm.
to my hip touched by the Angel of the Lord
affix legs that will only walk in the way of righteousness.
set on my face the rain of heaven from mighty clouds
of joy with praise shaking the sky like thunder claps sounds
like applause from a crowd rebelling with a just cause.
set eyes in an open face almost always blue like the sky
was that day but sometimes green like the soft belly of the sea
lying stormy and warm over the Queen City.
wrap me all up in skin and crown me with hair
that shines like sunlight on the waves of a lake.
to make me present and accounted for,
accountable for my actions.
imbue me with a spirit that lives forever and
a soul that already has.
set in me a mind that can make the choice between
Your good fortune and my plan or my life is forfeit.
when i am free,
made to be born, born to be made,
both fearfully and wonderfully,
then only then
am i me.

8.13.2008