POETRY
Lazarus
The few allowed to mourn at the grave
leave dead to life alive to death
Corn fields blaze foxes run for cover
voices of the dead deafening
In the beginning there was time
so much time . . .
Someone should have warned us
that first hour
mineral human animal plant
—nothing in creation stands apart
Not the swan’s loud low-pitched trumpeting
in the distance the air full of wild cries
Not the eagle that combs the air with its claws
Nor lives crushed by the weight of crosses born of faith
while hedgehogs snuffle in fringes of uncut grass
and fireflies form a crown for your head
Eavesdropping at Christmas
on Matthew, Mark, Luke and John on a bridge between heaven and earth
conferring on the stories they’ve told of Jesus and his life on this orb of loam
Mark and John remain silent on the birth altogether. Matthew and Luke agree
on the characters Mary, Joseph, and the babe. And there’s that shining star.
Here the two diverge.
With Matthew a star leads wise men (number unknown) to the babe in a house
bringing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, who then foil King Herod’s evil plot.
Luke, born storyteller, knows a well-told tale rich in detail resonates best with both
head and heart so he gives us an overfilled inn and babe in bands of cloth in a manger.
He adds to the cast Caesar Augustus, an angel of the Lord, an undetermined
number of shepherds, and a multitude of heavenly host to boot.
All four agree on the crux of the plethora of stories all told:
God makes a way out of no way and never wavers in an unfathomable love for us;
that God and humankind come face to face in many an unexpected place.
Epiphany
Snow falls on snow branches shagged with ice
Creation a tangle of brambles
A doe and buck sniff about elegant and easeful
Evergreens immortal stand straight and strong
Shepherd’s star shines splendid bright
Moon frozen spreads silver sheen
Shifting my weight twigs snap
Shatter the scene
Deer and buck bolt
Deep into wood
Where we burn weighted lives
Fallen stars white heat winter’s light
Significantly shaped by her childhood in North Carolina, Pamela S. Wynn now lives in Minnesota. Author of Diamonds on the Back of a Snake (Laurel Poetry Collective, 2004) and co-editor of the anthology Body of Evidence (Laurel Poetry Collective, 2012), her poems have appeared in numerous publications including Sojourners Magazine, Christian Century, Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality, Seminary Ridge Review and Arts: The Arts in Religious and Theological Studies.
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Heart of Flesh Literary Journal 