The Giant

The child is a giant
Laying down across my life
A range of soaring stone hills
Around and across which I have built
The roads and villages of my years.
He wrote “I love you” in crayon
To judge and bind his future Self
On paper long lost to time, now
A tattoo scrawled across my soul
For times I would not love:
The giant stirs, tilting the Earth
Toppling castle walls, burying forests;
Slowly blinks huge hillside-eyes
Raised on one elbow, stares
Across the horizon into my face.
I cannot match his gaze; he knows me,
Has expected me all these decades.
He returns to his slumber
And I repair my toppled bridges,
Clear the landslides and
Love again, as I told myself
Those years ago.





June 2019
When I was a little kid, I went through a period where I was concerned that I wouldn't be a Christian when I was older. The problem was that I knew I wanted to love God at that age, but I didn't trust my future self to feel the same way. And what is the point of committing to Christ at 7, if I think I'll change my mind when I'm in my 20s? In response to this feeling, one time I wrote "I love God" in big, permanent-for-a-7-year-old letters in my journal. I wrote it as both a current statement and also, in my mind, to bind my future self to it. For some reason I recalled that strange event recently and I wanted to write something about it.