by Christel Jeffs
UPROOTED LAMENT
after Lamentations 3:22
How long, O Lord
must I taste the sun’s fury?
This tree without hope,
by tornadic fist wrenched from the ground
—my firm foundation—
lies in the heat,
a silent aftermath.
How long, O Lord?
The origins of my anchorage are torn;
my faith is shredded into wasteland.
I thought the root would hold,
until its grasp surrendered to You.
Rise up, even now!
Lift this wreckage,
graft me to Yourself.
Restore me to the refuge
of Your groundedness,
and this I will call to mind:
“Because of the Lord’s great love,
we are not consumed.”
VINTAGE IS GOD’S WORK
after Allen Levi’s Theo of Golden
I.
I am learning the life of the vineyard.
I take my vines to where we began,
planting in the loam my fragile best.
I feed and clothe,
like children, they spread out from me
until they thirst.
The summer blisters, and He sustains,
but the vines must learn
to grow deep.
Deep down they weave,
search,
sigh,
press through the dark to find
Living Water.
II.
Shining rivers
invisible beneath the slate
center and nourish the vines
that no longer live for themselves.
They hold out grapes
for pressing and pouring,
to be savoured and shared—
perhaps they’ll craft a vintage wine
but not in their own time—
for vintage is God’s work.
IF NOT FOR THE ROOT
If not for the Root,
this woman would end.
She could not survive upon the land,
bereft of the anchor that keeps her here.
She treads in earth’s darkness
like the crucified Seed.
She reaches for
a storm-crippled sky,
and she would break,
if not for the Root.
Though endless heights and depths surround her,
she trusts the clay where she is planted.
Her soul circles around the anchor
that holds behind the curtain,
and because of that Root,
I (this woman)
will stay.
CHRISTEL JEFFS
Christel Jeffs is a writer, editor, and counselor. She lives in Northland, New Zealand, the setting for her debut novel, The Gumdigger’s Wife (2016). Her poetry is featured in several Fast Fibres poetry anthologies, as well as the literary journals Calla Press, Prosetrics, Quillkeepers Press, Vessels of Light, and The Way Back to Ourselves. She loves to help others rewrite their stories through her counseling work, while continuing to author her own, guided by the greatest Storyteller of all.