Timing

Now is not the time to chide you 

Dear friend who I love. 

There is a time 

For iron to sharpen 

Iron. 

It’s not this day 

When your heart is bleeding. 

I will offer a cup of cool comfort 

To your dry cracked lips 

Sit in silence 

Like Job’s friends first did. 

Raise my voice with the Psalmists’ audacity 

To rail and rage and 

even 

Call down hard and angry pronouncements 

Cathartic imprecatory prose 

For what they did. 

We will lament and grieve together 

I will not hold onto 

The hard words that seep out 

Won’t record them to bring 

Back to school you.

Later we will apply grace 

Give mercy 

Find perspective

Count the gifts

See the front side 

Of this ugly mess 

But today 

Here together 

We grieve and lament 

This sorrow laid on you.