Ron Riekki

As I Get older, I get softer, and I hope

that one day, I will be as

soft as the clouds, no,

softer, and my bones

want to go home, to

God, ache for God, and

in that ache, I’m awake,

alive, in my chronic

pain, my eyes cry

for God, and this poem

cries for God, and I pray

that you will pray for

me, dear reader, before

I am dead, so that I,

alive, can feel the love

of God fully rear

itself deep within

my core, and I will

pray for you too, as

that is what this poem

attempts to do.

It's simple

I promised myself

to God in September.

The first. These words

commemorate. I

remember. The moment

strikes me, clashes

against the before.

I, now, am so thankful

for something as simple

as the touch of these

bedsheets, the sound

of the crickets outside,

such beauty bound up

in every moment, this

very moment, never

alone, because I, now,

believe, so light, so

good, like snow.

Ron Riekki’s latest book is the poetry collection We're Also Wounded.  Right now, he's watching the 1986 documentary Gerard Manley Hopkins: To Seem a Stranger.