Four Wisps

Four Wisps

Ryan Keating

I

A charcoal tablet transfigures
painted pebbles of orthodox incense
into molten imagination
and my pent up prayers
bubbling in the terracotta burner
on the altar-ed wooden shelf
in my office sanctuary where
smoke unveils a sacred kingdom
and the scent of centuries’ devotion
speaks a better word than my buried cries.

II

Four wisps of smoke rising
like ritual and rope release
the bindings of earth for me
from the warm clay brazier:
consequences I could not carry
because I would be crushed beneath them;
time that cannot be retrieved
though I resent not having that power;
pain that could have been avoided
only at the expense of my soul;
and happinesses not mine to pursue
past the cloudy clarity of prayer.

Let them be received in Spirit hands
able to hold together what I must
let go.

---

Ryan Keating
Poet & Pastor

Ryan Keating is a pastor, teacher, winemaker, and coffee roaster living in Cyprus. His writing has appeared in publications such as Christian Century, Evangelical Missions Quarterly, Öncül, and Miras Dergi, where he is a regular contributor in English and Turkish.

Photography by Marek Piwnicki