Brush

–Exodus 3:2

What kind of brush or tumbleweed –
that burning bush before the fire?
Afterward, it did not bleed
or smoke or sing with a holy choir
of yellow birds. Its leaves decreed
I am departed, an unlit pyre,
a dull cross-hatch of ancient tweed,
the chaos of some old barbed wire
rusting. Then wind cast wide the seed
to paint the desert’s green desire.

Nightlight

Our child wakes in the middle of the night.
Still half asleep we ask who? what? unaware,
where until now dreams let us rest from light.

We hear like prophecy a whisper, finite,
the creak of a mortal footstep on the stair
our child wakes in the middle of the night.

Our eyes adjust. We fear the recondite,
the child coming down with something, despair
where until now dreams let us rest. By the light

of streetlamp, moon, and stars, we rise to right
what’s wrong, but feel so helpless, this nightmare
our child wakes to. In the middle of the night

at first it seemed a thief had come, but quite
the opposite, we offer up our care
where until now dreams let us rest. With light

and cries the Christ-child wakes us, too, his might
the fragile kind, the answer to our prayer.
Our child wakes in the middle of the night
where until now dreams let us rest from light.