Grace

I’m wedged between two lifetimes,
this one and that.
Like cement walls on either side,
they press close.

“What is okay for you is not for me,”
she taunts me, this daughter of mine,
letting me know she will not settle
for what I have settled for.
She will choose something all her own,
playing neither my father’s game nor mine.
I’m glad.

I will need to work on these walls myself,
without her help, without her lovely presence,
a kind of lace on concrete.

And so I do, mastering
new arts which give
the power to walk through walls,
to skip through time, to spin—
only with Christ’s help—
hate into gold,
strands of sparkling filigree
so bright, so true, they are
the only things I can recognize
can grasp, more real than iron,
to transcend the walls. Praise God.