Where Grace Is – a poem by Carrie Danaher Hoyt

Where Grace Is

In the gold case.
Behind drapes and gilded gates.
Under feathers and flames.
In the orange-jumpsuit-clad trapped in cages or inside broken minds.
In the swell of milk-drop on a mother’s breast.
In ash and grease and sweat.
In the rise of sun and compassion.
In cafés sipping coffee over dreams.
In the abandon of trust and deceit.
In the brush of whiskered breath or jet engines.
In cloudy film on corneas and lakes.
In the wasting of potential and organic things.
Where technology without faith makes light.
Where metal blades extract or access what is vital.
In music from a string, vibrating, or the night.
In the reach of men in palaces and underhulls of ships.
In soldiers armed with swords or righteousness.
In children, rocked in sleep or naked bottoms squatted over gutters in the street,
In the reflections of you and me as chance and morning traffic pass us by.
In the string of drool or thought from midday nap or hunger.
In the fury of infirmity or flight.
In the fathomless black of pupiled-eyes, the opaque liquid of their cup reflecting.
In the curl of smoke from thurible or cigarette.
In fingers twitching on triggers or lover’s flesh.
In unlit littered alleys and satin-sheeted beds.
In the passion of arms outstretched in lust or rigor mortis.
In the innocence of skin unblemished or shrapnel-shredded.
In temples, framed by hands in prayer or wielding whips, made of matter
Shaped with reverence and built or broken with a purpose.
Where mobs and lonely teem within a space, trapped and held in place
Like tea leaves in a bowl, cupped close and agitated.
In oil thick with musky scent or color painted on a canvas or a newborn baby’s head.
In fields of concrete boxes under stones,
In all we do and do not reap from what is sown.
Where prayer is necessary or forbidden.
Where grain transforms to flesh when fed to beasts
Who seek salvation or to live another day.
In the hammering of rain and sacrifice.
In the too-sweet press of lilies opened and forgiveness.
In the blue of noon and in acceptance.
In tumors or wombs where cells attach and multiply.
In the struggle of first breath and surrender.
In mercy and irreverence.
In words that weave into belief
Nothing.
In denial of randomness.
In the throats of those who thirst for that extracted of what’s fallen
But still blessed, sanctified and pressed to life again.
In the twisted limbs and minds and roots of men.
In kingdoms lit with fires long ago burned out.
In Hope
When we gaze up at this glow,
The place that fills the space of all the things we do not know
But seek.

Carrie Danaher Hoyt is a life-long lover and writer of poetry. Carrie lives in Massachusetts where she is a wife and mother of three school-aged kids. To pay the bills (as her poems don’t yet do this) she works as an estate planning attorney. Carrie has poems at twitterization.wordpress.com and cabinetofheed.wordpress.com