Plumbing the depths
And
Exploring the edges
Makes
For questions
About
My salvation
Now
I know how Jesus must have felt
When
Confronted with the company he kept
Strange
It seems like the makings of family
Breathless
And trembling I gaze in the face of
Love
Imagining that this is what heaven is
Where
Everyone and everything is as it
Always
Should have been
word of a woman 
I love the structure of this. Three sentences, no punctuation, the pauses created by the line breaks show where the commas and full stops might be, and also make that ambiguous. I find such a demanding structure as your original, one word then several, tones and hones my writing. And this halting, limping movement towards
Heaven
-approach carefully, are you sure?
Yes
Thanks Claire. Have you read any of the other poems on the site?
I am afraid not. I have been delighting in the Montreal Prize Longlist: http://montrealprize.com/anthologies/longlist-anthology/
Michelle,
I really appreciate all of your posts. You challenge me. You make me think. Your writings drive me back to God. And I must admit that your poetry touches me deeply.
I remember 26 years ago when you first shared some of your poems with me. I felt the beauty. But we were teens. What did we know, right? But where did that gift hide for the last 25 years? Why didn’t you write poetry as we journeyed? It is interesting, huh?
And now, the gift has been awoken once again. And I am amazed, in awe really, at what 25 years of seasoning has done to your gift. It is startling. It is, it is, … I just don’t have the words to tell you. But when I read your poems, I just get it. I know. I believe, in the midst of my doubt, that God is real. That he understands. That he is here.
Thank you, my love. You have amazed me every day for the last quarter century, and I cannot wait to see what today holds for us.
Kent
Thank you baby. Your opinion means the world to me.
I am not sure why I hid my gift or didn’t write. I am sure it had something to do with the fact that I started believing somewhere along the line that I didn’t have anything valuable to say. Or that people didn’t care what I had to say. It wasn’t because of you, but because of the culture we were immersed in.
It has taken me many years to reawaken the gifts I buried under the expectations of others. I can only ask God to forgive me for not listening to the heart he gave me and not being courageous enough to dig them up. All I can say is praise God, I feel like He called a code blue, brought the crash cart and resurrected what I didn’t even know was dead.
I am not sure how to balance all the responsibilities on my plate with developing and stretching and working out the muscles I allowed to atrophy.
Thank you for being patient with me and believing in me.
It is an exciting time in our lives. The pressures are greater, the responsibilities are greater, the time is short but I feel more alive than ever. Life is beautiful and I couldn’t share it with anyone but you.
You are my best choice.
m