NaPoWriMo// week 4

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The last full week of this month of poetry.  wow.  I’m not exactly sure how that makes me feel.

This week, after getting frustrated with myself for waiting until the end of the day to write my poem when I was out of inspiration (as mentioned last week 😉 ), I decided to go with an idea I’d toyed with before and write a series of poems on the different covenants/promises of God throughout history in God’s overarching story of redemption.  Simple, right?  No more messing with ‘what do I write about tonight??’  Well, I decided to actually go with a meter and rhyme scheme such that if someone were to create an appropriate tune, you could actually sing it as a hymn.  So, that meant a week of writing approximately a stanza a day of a poem with a set topic, set rhyme, and set meter.  Sometimes, it got a little frustrating, but I think it turned out tolerably in the end.

Consequently, I have but two poems to post for the week:  my lengthy one on redemptive history, and one shorter one I wrote on Thursday when I wanted a break from the rest of it.  xP

Any thoughts?  preferences?  Do you like longer or shorter?

//day 26//

Sometimes you think you know
what a year might bring.
There are days you try to guess
what joys will make you sing.

You’ve read it in books;
you can picture the plot.

But then I live out my story,
and it’s not all what I thought.

Because how could I imagine
the places, the people, the books
that would become the make of a journey
and mark each step I took?

All I can do sometimes is look back
and see, reflect, behold
the beautiful, mysterious path
in a tale I couldn’t have told.

//days 22-25, 27-28//

You had a plan to reveal Yourself,
A plan to make emptiness full,
To flood the darkness with glorious light,
And to make something formless whole.

“I will be your God,
and you will be My people.”
The Creator begins the song.

One simple rule:  “Don’t eat from this tree,”
But the battle raged deeper still.
Wholeness is not found apart from the One
Who marks between good and evil.

“I will be your God,
and you will be My people.”
The creation questioned the tune.

We bought the snake’s words, tried on our own,
And found ourselves fallen in shame,
Hiding in pieces of covenant broke.
“The serpent will be overcome.”

“I will be your God,
and you will be My people.” —
Still the promise:  “My war is won.”

The black blotted all but one man’s heart —
Year upon year, dark upon dark.
Grieved to the quick, You washed Your world clean,
Preserving the eight in Your ark.

“I will be your God,
and you will be My people.”
The words arced in colors and light.

From the eight survivors, nations began.
From the many, You called just two —
A man and his wife, not yet a family,
But staking their all on a Who.

“I will be your God,
and you will be My people:”
A story as vast as the stars.

All the start:  a pinprick of light —
In old age a promise of son.
“Through you, all nations on earth will be blessed” —
In wandering, promise of home.

“I will be your God,
and you will be My people.”
A nation — a world — from one man.

To a nation of slaves, rescue came
The Light stretched its might in the dark.
You gave them a homeland, showed them Your grace,
And they vowed to live by that mark.

“I will be your God,
and you will be My people.
I am the LORD Who broke your yoke.”

From the fields, You took a shepherd boy
Through victory, trial, and song,
Established him as the king of Your flock;
In seeking You, his reign was strong.

“I will be your God,
and you will be My people.”
You made his throne sure forever.

But all these pictures were promises,
Hints and shadows of something More.
You wrote the story we couldn’t complete,
The king, the light we’d waited for.

“I will be your God,
and you will be My people.”
You were all that we could not be.

Your perfection in place of our death,
Instead of our blackness, Your light.
You fulfilled Your justice through Your Son’s blood.
Your reversed the curse in Your might.

“I will be your God,
and you will be My people” —
The promise fulfilled evermore.

“I will be your God,
and you will be My people.”
Your triumph in glory ablaze!

Okay.  Maybe not the part about singing it.  It’s longer than I realized……