Dust and Ashes

Dust and Ashes

Scrambling for meaning

while scratching a living,

fed upon scraps of scripture,

parables of a better way;

revealing

the truth of a lifetime spent in giving.

Fragile, this breath within

that wakens me

to life’s glorious possibilities,

fierce winds

blow through past memories,

picking up the debris

that floats past me,

constantly impacting my journey.

The ruins of unconfessed sin

like dry skin,

leave me without any certainty,

nagging at me,

reminding me that there is the Christ,

he, the remedy to my habitual maladies.

Lent arrives regally,

a purple gale of penitential activity,

here I discover in simplicity,

with a degree forged in humility

that I am dust and ashes,

flawed, but loved eternally,

this realisation the only eternal certainty.

Fr Patrick Brennan © 2021