Prayer of Jacob

Prayer of Jacob

(Genesis 32:24-32)

Arrest my wrestling

Spirit with one swift

Caress or brush or blow –

Keep self-will crippled,

Close-cleaving, clinging,

Coupled to Majesty.

Direct my wavering

Stride – listing to Your

Side in pain-sweet triumph –

Bearer of Your Name,

Bowed beneath blessing,

Walking with a limp.

© Avril VanderMerwe 2008

Red Rose in a Vacant Lot

Haughty with self-assumed height,

From a glare of green

She stands and stares her small kingdom

Down,

Queening it over her unquestioning

Patch of earth.

Myopic with self-absorbed sight,

Mould and maggots,

She gives nothing away – petals

Closed,

Perfume unfurled against imagined

Marauders.

In lofty, self-reflected light,

Redly indifferent,

She dumbly contemplates her own

Worth,

Considering all else that lives and grows

Beneath her.

Oblivious to roses

Other than herself,

Blossoming with a more generous

Joy,

She reigns with withering arrogance

Among weeds.

© Avril VanderMerwe 1992

Sower of the Seed

Sower of the Seed

In a landscape once laid waste

By trampled trust –

Lying fallow, and fortified

Against all who

Trespass –

A single, hesitant shoot

Peeps unexpected

From charred soil, lifting tentative

Tendrils towards the Son’s

Embrace.

Oh Sower of the seed, whose scarred

And tender hands

Caressed this once discarded

Kernel to life

Unseen,

Now shelter, nourish, nurture it,

‘Til desolated

Fields spill flowering fragrance

Over fruitful land

Redeemed.

© Avril van der Merwe 2005