Open up
your ruined house.
Fear not for God.
The poem is my pocket.

The fiber fragment,
folded tight:
tucked into a secret,
always moving.

Behind the seam,
this inner lining,
I smuggle hope
beyond debris.

My fingers pinch
the promise firm.
I press tomorrow:
shelter in your palm.

We read aloud,
breathe into rubble.
We read aloud,
Our ruin now

a temple.

Published as lyrics for GODHEADSCOPE’s Patience EP, 2011. Spurred by Czesław Miłosz’s essay “Ruins and Poetry.”