He’d hold your tears instead...by Joanna Lee

He stood,
As sandy stones beneath his feet
Grow hot, cold,
Hard, soft; sinking toes.
In creeps texture;
Wind-cracked skin.
Fingertips tingle with incipient awareness
Of misty skies
Vapour ephemeral,
Yellow streaks transient.

Like life that passes
Temporal.
Like the sun that rises and eventually sets.

The tears that rim
Snake slowly down
Each drop in slow-motion fall.
Sand turns blurry grey.
But no frenzied horror writhes in him
No wind-tossed emotions
Only loneliness stilled like surface seas.
He knew too well she’s gone.

His pain a dissipated pink
That spread across the clouds.
Rich colour reflected on
breaking waves
of sadness that rising, roaring crash
Down upon his soul
As swallows of sorrow soar.

But look up,
There is still some magnificence
Some glory in that glow
In every stroke His hand is seen
His hand that painted beauty.
The birds
have far more songs to sing
The sand
has yet to be washed
By tides
tinged with reddish glow,
By tides of His love and blood.

She’s gone, but not to someplace sad
She’s gone to a place where the sun would shine
More beautiful than now.
Where voices sweeter than swallows sing

Where greater power than the seas
Of roaring waves and ebbing flow
Will be exalted high.
So wipe the flowing tears away
And whisper a little prayer.

For He could hold the ocean in His hand,
But He’d choose to hold your tears instead.

Joanna Lee, the writer of this poem is one of the youths of Powerhouse+