APPLYING ISAIAH 43 TO A STUBBORN CACTUS

I am creating something new. There it is! Do you see it? I have

put roads in deserts, streams in thirsty lands—CEV, Isaiah 43:19.

I have seen flowers

withered

in the garden of time.

I have heard the rustling

of

brittle-brown-fallen-dead-leaves,

crumbling

under my feeble feet.

I have watched beauty

faded

in the eyes of wit.

I have witnessed fragile bodies,

ended up in roses,

with petals and thorns.

But here, I am. In a parched land —

in a forest with trees ripped of leaves.

I, a binary between two mountains

cloven by a valley.

I, a seed, sown in the chasm of life,

like a needle buried

in the belly of the ocean.

This is me—a stubborn

cactus—that wouldn

't cease blooming,

even in the thawing heat of drought

in this scorching desert.

Because, like a

thick-hard-walled-succulent-stem,

my pine-mouth sips and swallows

the spit of the ALMIGHTY.