(For someone in trouble. May healing come quickly.)
“If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,’ even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you” – Psalm 139: 11-12
I stumble on the twisted root
Look up at the tree that
Tripped me
Rising high above,
Arms outstretched in the widest welcome
Taking everything in
Giving everything away
Creating a canopy under which
All could gather gladly
In joy and laughter.
I think of you
As you were.
A closer look
I see the scars and burns ascending
With the trunk toward the azure sky.
Signs
Of how many storms
How many blows
How many fires
That threaten to undo
Topple
Consume?
And yet, it stands.
And I, lying at its mangled feet
Think of you
And how you can be.
May the mystery of love
Which holds the mightiest of trees
And the most fragile scarred hearts
Hold you fast
Bind your wounds
And raise you up
Into the light.
Make it so.
christopherjoiner 
Beautiful, Chris. A reminder to me of these past 5 years without Carol and that there can still be light ahead in the future.
Chris, I had not read your poetry before, but there is great depth here, compacted into such powerful, short phrases. So many images invite me to stop and consider: the “outstretched” arms of the tree become the cross and the “mangled feet” the nail-pierced one thereon set against the “canopy” under which “all could gather gladly/ in joy and laughter.” Very rich. Thanks for making me slow down and think about it.