Eileen Berry

Lighted

“Seeing not only how each verse doth shine / But all the constellations of the story.” 

~ George Herbert, The H. Scriptures II

Herbert wrote of constellations,

stars shining in the Word.

Gazing through the dark,

I mark their forms in margin’s space,

the brilliant truth-ties—

kindness clustered as Pleiades,

strong Orion lines of love,

Grand Andromeda of grace.

Between the covenants old and new

flaming meteors race,

flinging into bold relief

the key to an epoch’s mysteries,

irradiating my belief.

Between star-shapes I trace

the luminous path of a King

born beneath the East’s brightest,

and I am lighted. 

cycling past the graveyard

Life will not be crushed. I feel it

rippling beneath pavement,

tree roots forging cracks in blacktop,

carving a washboard under my wheels,

rattling my very bones as I ride.

On my left over the long swath of green

weeds strain to root deeper, push skyward,

persistent after the mower’s raze,

clawing at headstones,

obscuring engraved names.

I pump the pedals and my wheels roll on.

I hear my heartbeat drum at my core,

and the road ahead rides

on an age before, when a life breath ceased,

names etched on torn hands.

One short sleep wakened,

an inexorable stone

rolled over death’s ground,

flattening it for the ages.

When my rhythm breaks,

when these wheels halt,

when my name stands graven in stone,

life will not be crushed. I feel it.

Eileen Berry lives in South Carolina, where she is an educational content writer and a creative writing instructor at a local Christian university. She has published lyrics for church choral music and art songs with Beckenhorst Press, Hal Leonard, and Lorenz. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Time of Singing, Relief, The Clayjar Review, Persephone, The Penwood Review, and elsewhere.