Echoes

Sorrow, sorrow everywhere

splattering world headlines with its stare,

making worry-lines on the faces of

those I love, and some I've yet to know;

yet sorrow is the strand that binds us,

find us, weaving us into God's ancient tale

Broken, broken everywhere

within our hearts, or bodies hale;

cancer cells and expectations stale

growing unchecked can usher death—

brokenness devours both body and soul
with all its demands it is never full

Heart ache, heart break everywhere

and many are the ways to cope—

mothers cry, their faces aging,

men grow sober and waste away,

heart-hungry, not for food, but for hope,

dying for want of the Water of Life

Echoes, echoes everywhere

of Eden and of the Fall—being God

is our desire, to have and to control;

to cry out, "I don't love you anymore!"

and have it reverberate in all divorce,

in every act of our damned selfish wills

Bleeding, bleeding everywhere

from hands and brow, feet and side,

from the broken hearts of those betrayed;

death presses on mortal men, they are afraid...

But glory! Blood atones from the Sorrow-Man,

Redemption shouting into God's story