Holy Ground

I’ve never seen anything

So astonishingly beautiful

As your radiant face

Worshiping

Face down 

Bowing in utter submission

Hands open

In complete trust

Tears stream down puffy cheeks

(Mine, not yours)

Little drops finding well-worn rivulets

Of familiar ground 

But really, just barely

This is just barely familiar 

Barely similar

You are laboring there.

In labor.

Deep breaths

Guttural groans

Waves of agonizing pain

Like I did with my babies

The ones who breathed

And cried

And pinked up in the end

This is no passing of tissue

And grieving a lost lifetime 

Imagined for a few weeks

(Which is its own deep, real loss.

Don’t get me wrong.

I sent five lost loves on ahead of me

In that way. 

Each one loved.

And released 

With a name

And many tears.)

But this.

This is different.

Oh, my precious daughter 

You have prepared for

Bought clothes for 

Rearranged life for 

A new life for all of you

Now a family of three

Heart breaking,

You free fall in terror

And trust

Into your Father’s strong arms

Where Deaniebaby already is

You are closer to both now

Than ever

In this sacred space 

© 2025 Laurie Sitterding

In the Last Days

This month’s prompt for submissions at Poets Online calls for poems about the apocalypse. “So while the apocalypse can include the end of the world, especially in modern usage, it originally referred more to that vision or revelation about ultimate things, which may or may not include destruction.

For our July issue, we want to read poems that address "the end" as an apocalypse that is perhaps near, perhaps very distant, and may be destruction or revelation.”

Here is my offering. 

IN THE LAST DAYS

Paul has painted 

an interesting picture 

of the end of the world, 

if you ask me.

(Which nobody did, 

I’ll grant you.)

“But understand this, 

that in the last days 

there will come times of difficulty,”

he says.

And then he tells it like it is. 

“For people will be…”

(Just check out this list.

And shudder and squirm a little.)

“Lovers of self

Lovers of money

Proud

Arrogant

Abusive

Disobedient to their parents

Ungrateful

Unholy

Heartless

Unappeasable

Slanderous

Without self-control

Brutal

Not loving good

Treacherous

Reckless

Swollen with conceit

Lovers of pleasure 

rather than lovers of God

Having the appearance of godliness, 

but denying its power.

Avoid such people."

And so it is

That I find myself

Alone.

In the dark.

Avoided.

At least by those convinced they’re 

good enough to do the avoiding. 

And that I’m “such people”

(Which I am, let’s just admit.)

And who isn’t, really?

Did you even read the list?

And while Paul has me there—

Avoided, huddling alone in the dark

Peter has me 

Exposed.

“But the day of the Lord will come

like a thief,

and then the heavens 

will pass away 

with a roar, 

and the heavenly bodies 

will be burned up 

and dissolved, 

and the earth 

and the works 

that are done on it 

will be exposed.”

And so I huddle under my fig leaves 

Seeking shelter.

Or covering.

Or mercy.

Or something good amid all this bad.

And await the Last Days.

Hiding in God

From God. 

“Surely goodness

Surely mercy

Will follow me

All the days of my life

And I will dwell

In the house

Of the Lord

Forever”

Well, maybe.

One can only huddle

And hope. 

And fall on grace.

© 2025 Laurie Sitterding