Lent Poem by Jacqui Thewless

Sometimes,
the door is shut.
There’s no entrance: a wall.
My friends’ songs, a long way off,
rising to the place my heart can’t reach,
are the voices of strangers.

I want to know if He’s waiting
for me to speak –
to kindle a confession
He has never heard:
words spoken to the three walls where they meet
in these tri-angled cold corners.

Yesterday,
there was an angel near me,
patiently translating tongues and shouts:
all day
was Easter-easy as our praise.
Today,
my lonesome soul is choked with
spiritual clinkers.
Flames that flickered in my bricked hearth
have burnt out.