By Elizabeth Wickland
Those who walk in darkness will see a great light. -Isaiah 9:2
I donned the sky
like slippers
and waded gently,
ripples of night
forming around
each silent step.
Bending low
I touched the stars,
hanging hopes
on impossible,
uncountable children,
filling the spaces
between my fingertips
with fragments of light.
There is comfort
in this pelagic
pilgrimage, cloak
around my shoulders,
flowing gown
around my knees,
inviting, pulling,
weighing me down
deeper into the dark
waters of baptism.
The depths call
me further still
and the sky slips
from my feet until
I float, wholly unshod,
buoyed on waves
of unfathomable grace
toward the dark horizon
where the star on which
all hope hangs will rise.
Elizabeth Wickland lives in Bozeman, Montana, cultivating as much beauty as she can with words, art, and garden beds. She writes for The Black Barn Online, and her work has been published by The Way Back to Ourselves, Calla Press, The Rabbit Room Poetry Substack, Bandersnatch Books, and others.