Return Us to Morning and Other Poems
by Christel Jeffs
RETURN US TO MORNING
I need a renaissance
of silence.
I need to bring it back,
clear the room of all clamoring.
“It’s loud in here,” the hippocampus said.
Nightmares are not quiet,
nor are the ghosts of words long said:
incessant,
taut, soft, or
screaming,
they beat you over the head every time.
Oh, to be lost in beauty,
to sit on a sand dune
above the ocean roar
a distant clap of water
upon water.
Oh, to be seen
in the karaoke blend of a coffee shop,
to be heard over voices
by empathic witness.
I need a blank page,
a sunset,
a scintillating calm,
and starred sky
to return us to morning—
and dew,
sunrise, and
cold.
Silence for this Golgotha darkness
to peel back and
reveal the day of Easter,
the renaissance of a Sunday morning.
MY HEART, A TREE
Buried in a forest,
deep below the shimmering canopy,
I find myself grabbing at spider webs.
I hope their fragile strength
will mark and stick
to my desperate fingers.
I scavenge among soaked foliage
for a way to stand.
But it is slippery here—
and dark.
How quickly the
gossamer melts
in the damp.
May I prise off the strands
and hold space with the ground,
okay with being broken—
for now.
May this state grow my heart.
May it call forth a tree,
holding out fruit in long-blossoming arms:
an evergreen edifice
of being human.
LAZARUS
Wrapped in a world of cloth and decay –
The body mirrors the soul.
This is hell.
Nothing divorces the heart, the spirit,
from the furniture of flesh you rest in.
Only the raised hands of your friend,
the Saviour,
can call forth the holy,
the wholeness of your body,
like a butterfly leaving
cracked skin behind.
Lazarus,
come out.
CHRISTEL JEFFS
Christel Jeffs is, first and foremost, a beloved daughter of God: the one that Jesus loves. Beyond that, she is a writer, editor, and counselor. She lives in Northland, New Zealand, the place which serves as the backdrop for her debut novel, The Gumdigger’s Wife (2016). Her poetry has also featured in several Fast Fibres Poetry anthologies and the literary journal The Way Back to Ourselves. She loves to help others re-write their stories through her counseling work while continuing to author her own, guided by the greatest Storyteller of all.