THE WHEEL

The art of poverty is a spinning potter’s

wheel
sometimes

Throwing a masterpiece, most often not:
do you

think

God is not the master of His craft?

The clay of my undoing is spun
round

and round

The doing or undoing mere dust

in a storm
called form:

So if I let Him take the wheel gone
the art and gone the pot
my dust absolutely
lost in His.

____________

PURE GOLD

Will you trade this for That,

this earthen pot
for that thing

Which is pure gold, not

something

to touch or see

but

A light to live within
a radiance

Dressed in the spun garments
we call

Revelation!

____________

FIRE ALARM

My house burned to the ground
my heart melted in the raging

fire

Lit by Your contagious love.

Didn’t You know that fire
ignites fire, didn’t You know

a glance,

A look, a whisper can reduce

Lead to liquid, a stony heart to
fragmentary dust, did You just

see

A sucker for love when You looked?

Now I know I have to live
in the house of the heart:

with You,

Alone to burn in Your alarming flame.

—Sharon Marcus