then

                     then God came looking

for them, accustomed to the stroll
in the evening cool, the conversation
welling like a bowl of drink.   the garden

                     dressers still picking

shreds of pulp from their teeth, a hole
bit in the ripeness of designed intention,
dwelling on guilt's born brink, hid to harden

                     limp crusts of blaming.

He called them out with words like the pull
of leaven rising, a redemption
telling of lie's death, the ink of pardon

                   drying, then
                      enflaming.

 
Hailstones and Coals of Fire

Brash awkward cries must seem lukewarm to Him who was never created.

Tell myself so as my gawky embarrassment's shattered by still voice.

Tears wet the face of my raging disgrace and collect in a fool's pool.

Ransom is poured on my dirt, an embossing of trail to the hot light.

Gravity's rational mercy replaces my arm's length of be/hold.

Awe at the deafening roar, the retrieving belief from this thick cloud!

How can a cloud be directional, lead through the desert from split sea?

This is no brooding, no rune-cluttered sooth-sayer...mystery rains down

chosen soliloquies meant for the creatures to eat with a soft ear--

food that will ride down the rapids of bloodstream to lodge in the real place.

Swallow these hailstones, these fire-coals, tremble at what I can not know.

Wince at the taste of their shocking, their sweetest allegiances innate.

Ransack the iced and the fiery morsels that lance at my dull hue.

Wonder at tasks which are more than my stone mind can navigate--strange

routes!
Laugh at my hesitance melting away in the chill of the hot ash.

jan carroll
Jan lives in western Wisconsin. She holds a BA in foreign language from the University of Wisconsin--Eau Claire. Her work has appeared in Hrafnhoh, Bellowing Ark, The Lamp-Post and Moraine.