Know-Love-Obey God

(Two Random Acts of Poetry in the same week? Well, this one is because it’s good to express thanks with others. Part of my Endless Gifts…)

Your works, Lord, are mighty.
Great are Your deeds.
You have brought two together,
joined them, and granted from
their union six children,
the last of which has come far
across the ocean, brought up protected
in a warm home, free from harm and abuse,
fed well (too well?) with good, sticky
rice and chicken, lumpia and lengua
and ban-berry pies from Polly’s
for Christmas Eve feasts, trained
in body with softball and basketball
and tennis lessons from excellent
Coach Bob, followed by lunch out
at Tiny Naylor’s or Sizzler’s or Yoshinoya—

six children, the last of which sang
and danced and wrote secret poems and doodled,
learned ensemble singing and staggered breathing
and balance, learned marching band steps,
“eight-to-five,” earned teenage income
at the same tennis club of her girlhood—

six children, the last of which met grace,
grace and inseparable love,
sitting in a dorm room, black-covered
first Bible open to the place of falling
in love, first-time love growing into
love of a lifetime, more than a lifetime,
given new, new life—

six children, the last of which, island-born,
You have joined with another,
a man of God,
and granted from our union three children,
amazing boys, joy-filled voices, handsome
hug-giving boys, objects of my prayers that
they would grow, like the man before them,
into men of God.

These works You have done, Father,
and I live in praise, in thankful worship.