Thorns and Honey

by Mariana Mosli

The Garden of Eden, by Jan Brueghel, the Elder, 1610-1612, oil on panel

THORNS AND HONEY

Where are you?                          

We crouch beneath   

                     fig leaves and fallen petals,  

                 mud on our heels, sap staining our lips.  

                 When did we forget that every curl of vine,  

                  every bleeding pomegranate, every thorn-  

                   torn rose is an expression of His love?   

                    Love always finds something to hold,  

                  and He chose us—knit tendons like roots  

                under skin, veins webbed like ivy across ribs,  

              lungs unfurling like morning glories at the kiss  

                           of breath.  

                         When did we forget we are dust—  

                     earth’s borrowed skin warmed by Glory—  

                   that we rose only because He leaned down  

                and filled the hollows of our chests with ancient  

                               wind?  

                        We live here now, somewhere between  

                   exile and rescue, between splintered Eden  

                and a city with no night, between gardens—  

             where His scandalous grace sprawls like wild mustard,  

                invasive with mercy.  

                  In this earth we learn the joy of blistered hands,  

              knees bent in dirt-baptism, fingernails rimmed with  

                compost and hope. We feel the absurd delight of  

                 one green shoot breaking through ruined ground.  

                      And yet— the garden remembers  

                   our trespass. It blooms and it burns,  

                 it kisses and it cuts, it weeps morning dew  

                 over severed roots and laughs golden through  

                               sunflower fields.  

                    This is what it means to love in His garden—  

                 to bury our dead beside our seeds, to eat bread  

                from cursed ground, to tend what fights to live  

                     while knowing death will come.  

                     Where are you? 

               Still hiding.  

                Still raking rows with trembling hands.  

                   Still learning—  

                        That grace grows best in the dirt.  

                        That mercy tastes like sweat and honey.  

                        That the Gardener was not afraid  

                        to kneel with us in the thorns  

                        and bleed His love into our soil.  

               Somewhere between Genesis and Revelation,  

            between the first tree and the last, we learn:  

        The One who plants can only give life. And when He calls,  

           we will rise again—roots deep, leaves lifted,  

                   blooming toward His voice.  

                      Where are you?  

                     Right here, Lord.  

                       Right here.   

MARIANA MOSLI

Mariana Herrera Mosli is a Cuban-American creative and ecclesial storyteller exploring the intersection of theology and literature to bridge the sacred and secular. An MA scholar in Women and Ministry at Northern Seminary, she amplifies marginalized voices through research, storytelling, and community-building. She writes Meet at the Well, a biweekly Substack fostering honest conversations on faith, culture, and the in-between spaces. She is launching a podcast to expand these dialogues. Her visual and written work has been featured in The Way Back to Ourselves, Vessels of Light, Creative Loafing, Buzzfeed, HuffPost, and more. Mariana lives in Tampa, FL, with her husband, children, and writing companion, a colorful maltipoo named Lulu.