Hi Church, in anticipation of both Lent and Spring, I recently wrote a poem called, The Spring Tree. I have decided to share it with you. The title is a reference to the cross of Christ rising up from the soil like a big, beautiful tree. May you be richly blessed by the love of Christ in all that awaits you this coming season.

With you,

Kyle Chase, on Behalf of the Elder and Minister Team

 

The Spring Tree

At the Spring Tree, with glistening buds

Tear-wet cheeks are fields where dreams grow

Deep in the black soil, full upon the hill

High above the tomb-guards —

Who with their tearless, pock-marked faces —

Shout mal-odious songs against the Sun

For His “unkept” promises, for desolate fields.

 

But life and living open like a thunderhead pouring

Where the Spring Tree grows under drops of sorrow.

 

Heaven’s brow bent, back buckled, bruised and bursting

Cut, oozed, split and thirsting

Twisted roots and trunk upturning 

Toward an eye-less sky.

A cotton-tongue tasting a sour wine.

 

No dawn-chilled dew, 

No drink nor draught,

Nor nectar of En-Gedi.

No ambrosia of the gods.

Only vinegar and tears

Where the Spring Tree grows

 

Higher than the cedars

Higher than the kings

Inside their shade-drawn palaces

Filled with shiny things.

 

Wider than the wadis,

Spread like mother’s arms

In supper’s-ready, sing-song welcome,

Fire on the hearth

For every tear-stained, tunic-trampled,

Torn and weary traveler — with patch-ripped satchel — seeking rest:

The Spring Tree is wide enough to bless.

 

Even tomb-guards —- soul-loaned, sword-spent

And scorched with shame —

May soothe in the shade of the Spring Tree

Where water flows freely ’pon long-forsaken fields.

 

Every tear a dream there, a fated fruit, a future foretold,

Every promise kept, every bud in bloom,

Full fields a-flower with honey-color paths

And friends that last

And a gold-mended past,

A seamless garment where the lot is cast,

And all the wandering stories 

Are sewn into one.

 

Sown like a seed.

Sown indeed

Where the Spring Tree grows.