In and Out

 

 

Out here I am weightless, or grounded, or both.  Smooth, cool grass curling up around my heels, filtered between my toes, flittering softly.  Darkness above me and here below.  I brush my own shoulders lightly for just a touch of warmth—an inside connection to the “outside” me which I think must surely appear as if crumbling in panic, in crisis, in chaos.  But I’m not and I don’t.  “Outsiders” even say I look like I am holding it all together.  But it’s not me who is doing the holding.  I am held.  Again, and again, and again, and still.  Silence is breathing about me in words the “outside” me hears inwardly.  Flowing, like prayers.  My eyes adjust to a myriad of twinkling lights.  Be still.  And know.

 

a river of starlight

the stillness of knowing

He hears me, too

 

“Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10

  

© 2026 Jennifer Wagner

 

dVerse Haibun Monday: Silence

 

image created by me using copilot

Half/Rest

 

It’s fantastic

how You meet me here

in my undoing—spit-shined

as if You don’t see it all.

 

Those smudges

have just made it worse—

I can see that now.

 

But, in my belly

there’s half a Santa Cruz peanut butter

and Southwest honey sandwich,

and half a glass of sun tea

fresh-bled in the Arizona sun.

 

Why “Arizona’s?”  It’s all of ours, really.

But it feels like it’s mine today.

 

Mr. Siamese watches with me

the half a dozen

Gambel’s quails marching around

pecking the yard

filling their already plump physiques—

turbans bouncing.

 

I smile and laugh, and it feels good,

since I’ve already cried three times today,

after a dry spell.

 

My son’s big warm hand,

the one I used to fit into mine,

rests for a moment on my shoulder

 

and I forget

all the other things

resting on me.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

dVerse oln 

Poem-a-Day 16:  write a “something fantastic” poem

 

“Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”  Matthew 11:28

“Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.”  1 Peter 5:7

 

Here

Today, blue is a dusk-purple sunrise

shaken by wind,

cloudy

with a chance of—?

 

Rain.  No, I wouldn’t call it that.

Not from where I come from.

 

But here,

just a spattering of

little holes left in the sand,

a thumbprint’s depth

is all.

 

But here I take your hand,

walk where a coyote

shimmies up under the fence,

trotting off,

eyes darting.

He’s confident he’ll find prey here.

 

I should be so confident

you always provide

what I need.

And if you don’t,

and I die,

I die

provided for.

I am always in your hands.

 

I don’t believe this is all there is

any more

than I am all there is.

 

I didn’t create this breath in my lungs

or the lungs which breathe it,

didn’t create this dust

which matches my skin—

cells blowing away into

the atmosphere.

 

I didn’t create my own life—

that’s your job.

I am to live it—that’s mine.

 

And to you my life will go

when it’s done.

 

This sand, this dust

I am

to I AM.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

 

I AM:  Exodus 3:14, John 8:58

“If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”  Daniel 3:17-18

“For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.”  Hebrews 4:10