April  2008 - Vol. 18


photo by Wojtek Solecki

Grass

by Daniel Propson

A voice says, “Cry out.” 
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
“All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God stands forever.”
             - Isaiah 40:6-8
Our friends the trees have shed their colored coats.
From the first we were the forest’s mockery.
They fell like insults on our weary spines,
Arrayed our carpets in their gaudy finery.

In time too late, we changed our color too and, parched,
We begged the snow to saturate and shield us from
The winds that like a scourger blow the Winter’s stay
Away.  O biting gusts of death and coming Spring,

Have mercy on us rotting things.  If you must onward go,
Then pass these weaklings over on your deadly, awful way—
If you must shout your loudest, yield us but a whisper now,
While the strong and mighty evergreens you easily flay.

The breath of God has left its mark.
Our blades have fallen under prints of snow;
We are light no more, obscured
Beneath the weight of His white message.

He called it freedom.
It is pain.

More than we can bear He bore.
Now, whiter than snow, we wait
For coming Spring.

[Daniel Propson is an English teacher and father of two. He and his wife, Priscilla, live in Detroit, Michigan, USA and are members of Detroit Community Outreach and the Word of Life Community
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(c) copyright 2008  The Sword of the Spirit
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