The whole world is in captivity

Is God looking at us with antipathy?

It’s a hurricane down here

The grave has arms 

No one can escape it, no matter their wit, money, or charm

I run past the cemetery on Sunday mornings

I prefer that over sitting in a pew 

Both the living and the dead, the sitting and the standing are all askew

I don’t celebrate Halloween

Decay and darkness don’t need their own day

I’m not morally pristine

And I’m not depressed 

Nah. 

There’s a side of the living me that welcomes death

I yearn for rebirth

But it seems the only way is to go down into the earth

To follow my Maker

It’s a paradox

That death and evil could overtake the world’s Savior

There’s a weariness in my eyes and a heaviness in my husband’s shoulders

Our zest has been doused

Like battle hardened soldiers

Our fire is low and we’re tired, ready to get out

Just like everyone else

I see the stooped posture to come 

Gravity undone

Who would think to put flowers on a grave?

Why is there even a thought that we’re all depraved?

That life is supposed to be some other way?

It eludes us all

Into that pit even the prettiest and strongest and wealthiest will fall

That graveyard is insatiable

But so is my Maker’s desire

History marches forward but He never tires

And here in late summer I watch the crepe myrtles drying

And I ponder the fact that we’re all dying

Things aren’t as they should be 

There’s a plastic skeleton in my backyard

A relic of my future self

Oh to feel what God has felt 

He’ll come to rescue 

To repossess, to resurrect, to make new

For Him, it’s not too hard 

He also holds the hurricane

He patrols the graveyard