COMPROMISING GRACES

Life’s unexpected renewal
festers
in a jar
kept on a shelf
behind
a bag of jewels
that isn’t really
there.
But the mind
sets in a concrete
of expectations
the embryos of rules
to make rainbows and prisms
out of nightmares.
Somewhere
between the soul imprisoning deserts of excuses
and lucid forests of insight
flows the fount of God’s matchless reason,
which loving replenishes our emptiness
when we are busy chasing mirages.