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Poetry

Parable of the Lost

By April 16, 2024 3 Comments

quick breath, heart beat, clock strike: each metronome
tick-tocks past paths that arch like R’s bowl, back
by another route, by the crook’s call home:
a lost and found crossroad, the bowed-soul’s track.
Where the cobwebbed coins glitter and panicked
sheep bawl, and the pig-boy’s stench lingers;
some walk; some crawl; smoke curls from coal brandished
by angels, lips sloughing lies while fingers
find ash to scatter and garments to rive.
But look, as smog shifts and gray dawn gives way,
and gold morning lifts her lash-curtained eyes:
green fields, still streams, and beyond where the day
breaks, adagio unfurls swelling song.
Beloved one, return, rejoice, belong.

Hear the author talk about the poem:

Photo by Rachel Loughman on Unsplash

Bethany Besteman

Bethany is the managing editor of Reformed Worship and a worship coordinator and church administrator in Silver Spring, Maryland where she lives with her husband and son. Her poetry has appeared in EkstasisReformed Journal, and Presence and is forthcoming from Cable Street. She has a Ph.D. in English language and literature from the Catholic University of America.

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