Saltsilver/Repent
We found mercy on the way home bright as hope,
delicate as hunger in summer bones.
Deep and hungry forgiveness cracked us open,
bodies screaming to be screwed new, shattered
loose and glass-blown new.
Sanctification
is a hard going beloved.
Salmon
jumping upstream
raging.
A quick clean break of ripples overhead,
shocked sure for wave-break,
immense ache
all the way down.
Sin
singing as it goes
down to die.
A turn –
Sun shimmers on water.
We have come to sundered
and surrendered for the born-again
We have come to be
spliced open
for glory.
Heft of our souls
Salted to reft and ruin.
Bone-deep how repentance
shines everything up
Warmed to sun-streams and steady strokes,
we swim suddenly alive to grace in bright water,
bent to hope,
Made ready for glory, Holy Spirit golden
and free.
Claire Hellar Adderholt is a missionary kid who grew up in Papua New Guinea and, after living in California and Colorado, now lives with her husband in Birmingham, Alabama. She is a UCLA grad and loves Tolstoy, Taylor Swift, mountain hikes, and peonies. Her poems can be found in The Rabbit Room, Calla Press, Wilderness House Literary Review, and elsewhere. Find her on Instagram @claire_de_luned and on Substack at Lanterns in the Dark, where she publishes a new poem every week.
Amethyst Review 