Simply Jesus

your blood blooms still 

© 2013 Jennifer Wagner

When there’s not enough hyssop

to cleanse me of all these flaws—

I think I must live with them,

make slow improvements

with the

tick tick tick

of time’s cruel elements.

I know too well this unruly thing

inside me is me,

but there, too,

is the me that hungers for her first love

somewhere buried beneath

bruising, hardening, scarring

it throbs,

however disjointedly.

I am not a girl of

ritual, rules or religion.

I only know that at fifteen

I just wanted

to hold Your hand.

And now,

beyond church

and the things they add to it all,

and bitter politics

and the things they take away from it all,

and morality,

and all these rules I break—

I stand here today

wondering

when did I ever get the idea

You were not enough?

In dark,

in cloud,

in lightless days,

Your blood blooms still.

And I remember

I never needed

anything else anyway.

© 2013 Jennifer Wagner

1 Corinthians 2:2-5.  And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony^[a] of God. ² For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. ³ I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. ⁴ And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human^[b] wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, ⁵ that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Easter Poem

of all the blueprints

and maps,

locations marked with a jagged cross,

i like the one where we intersected best

Copyright © 2013 Jennifer Wagner

I celebrate Easter and if you do too, I hope you have a happy one!