Prayer of an Old Chimney

Oh ignored Carpenter, Over-looked Yahweh,

Thank you
for giving
me what my smoke-filled eyes
mistook for loss.





For sustaining my conflagrating arrogance
until every defining board,
every weight-bearing rafter,
every imperiled shingle
I false-claimed as trophy for gain,
smoldered to foddering ash.

By the power of your soft-petaled
will you forbore
my ill-conceived fire
and suffered the flames
of all my self-victimizing stories.

At last I found myself redeemably alone.

Thank you for reclaiming what only belonged
for a season to me,
However grieved by the loss of your hard-won
but now gone structure,
You conceive newness in my widening cracks.

What once was a conduit for smoke and a cradle for flame
Is for now a cistern for light and a trough
of surrender for whatever is meant to become.

Surrounded now by what only You can build
And only You can nail, I wait for transformation.