Covenant Love

Promise, photo by Ken Sutton, from Flickr, Creative Commons

This National Poetry Month I will be posting a sequence of poems, written last year and this year, for others in a series called Giving Poetry. In this series, people request a poem using a title, specific words, concepts, or ideas. After writing the poem, I send it to them, posting it on Facebook and on my blog. This is Giving Poetry.

Covenant love: spire, reflection, wave, red, beard, moss

Covenant Love: for Barry

Covenant love,
as old as the beard of father time,
binding as moss to the oak tree,
sealed in red blood,
shed for you and for me,
lifted up in spire,
a wave of grace, promise, and love,
which will never tire,
in the reflection up above.

© February 5, 2015, Robbie Pruitt

Lifeblood

Lifeblood

The embodied Word bleeds

When one speaks it

It pours out in hemorrhage

Giving Life for those who seek it.

© January 30, 2015, Robbie Pruitt

Blood, photo by Mate Marschalko, from Flickr, Creative Commons

Shroud

Shroud

The river runs red

Scarlet like a cord

Through a curtain

A garment of our Lord

Crimson and Purple

And Gold and dread

From thorn and head

Blood poured out—Royalty

In color and in crown

Until split in two—dead

And fallen to the ground


© January 30, 2015, Robbie Pruitt

Cross in Crown of Thorns, photo by Doug1021, from Flickr, Creative Commons

Judas: Blood Cries from the Ground

Cain Killing Able, photo by gabork, from Creative Commons

Judas: Blood Cries from the Ground

Judas—The Potter’s Field

Drips with the blood

Of this tree’s yield

Your Brother’s blood

It cries out—Judas—

From the ground

As in the days of Able—

The day of Cain’s betrayal.

He offered the perfect sacrifice

But yours would not suffice

And it cries from the ground

Below the burst of the noose

Where your life was bound.

Redemption was won on another tree,

—Judas—Bought by the blood of Calvary

A perfect sacrifice for eternity

He is His brother’s keeper

In this—This is His perfect chivalry


© February 11, 2014, Robbie Pruitt