A Cup of Grace
Imagine a cup of grace
poured into your palm,
which is also cupped.
What will you do with this
unwarranted bounty?
Rub it over your face,
a holy moisturizer?
Drink it, in desperate gulps or
measured sips? Shape it
into a ball of cloud,
then hand it over
to the old woman, the sick
child, the lost man?
Convert yourself
into an instrument of grace.
A piccolo perhaps, viola or timpani,
like a heart beat, an unforsaken
heart beat.
Imagine a symphony as you pray,
consider the notes you would play.
Then go in grace.
Uncup your hand.
.
Kathleen Brewin Lewis writes about the natural world and family life. She’s the author of two chapbooks of poetry, Fluent in Rivers and July’s Thick Kingdom. Her work has also appeared in Valparaiso Poetry Review, The Christian Century, Southern Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, and The Southern Poetry Anthology Vol. V: Georgia. She’s a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and a Best of the Net nominee.
