Free Matinee tickets
We listen from black vinyl bucket seats
Atop a puttering tractor.
Standing hay sighs slowly in the breeze.
Grasshoppers flick in the dry stems.
Hidden crickets raise an alarm
And grind into a higher gear
To match the tractor’s engine.
Cicadas in their perches
Count the rising temperature
With anxious screeches.
Gravel groans beneath hooves, tires, feet
And the cow’s tail swipes and slaps at gnats.
Oaks creak and stretch in the wind,
Their scorched leaves lazily clap.
An ember sunset sweeps for miles
inking Oklahoma orange
seeping into rough red dirt.
I know no greater glitter
than the sun sparkles in tassels
of a field full of corn.
A wide West sky blushes,
blooms flame, flinging phoenix fire
across the dome of the dying day.
Dusk descends with dewy exhale.
Evening velvets into vagaries
of lingering liminal light.
Speckled stars scintillate
in the winking windows of heaven
shuddering disbelief at their distant beauty.
The sickle-sharp moon
soothes the sea of grasses
into blue oblivion.
Wind washes the world awake
and signals the sparrow to sing
the first-light fanfare
of phoenix flight to life.
This body, it was made just perfect.
These arms and this heart,
they were strengthened to carry heavy burdens.
This middle, it’s the perfect size
to be squeezed between two small arms.
These hips, they’ve been shaped
to make a seat for smaller ones.
And they easily find the perfect bend
to bring these eyes on level
with other pairs, set in beautiful, small faces.
These hands, they are small, but toughened
by cooking, carrying, patting, and playing.
They hold suffering
like a familiar thing.
These ears, they have heard
many voices in many languages.
But this mouth, it was made to say in all of them:
He loves you.
Because
His Body, it was made just perfect.
His mouth, it taught me
how to live.
His ears, they listened
to pleas, misery, joy, long before mine did.
His hands, they healed
and broke bread in example for me.
They too held suffering
And bade me do the same.
His eyes, they see the depth of my sin
But still flash Love enough to cover all.
His middle, it took the lashes
mine deserved.
And His arms, they carried
a burden I could not:
the weight of my sin and the world’s.
This body, it was made perfect
Because His Body, it was made perfect.
And its death
gives life
to mine.
— By Miss Cellanea 