Meet Me Under the Terebinth Tree

Meet Me Under the Terebinth Tree

Ryan Helvoigt

Meet me under the terebinth tree,
and we’ll bury the fake
gods who mocked us, empty
promises brimming with
lessons learned packed
like dirt under our nails.
Not pretty, not easy
to forget either.

Bring a stone and we’ll vow
before it, a witness unyielding
to hold us to better
words, better habits, better
selves with flinted faces
set towards the promised
land of arrival. A stone
to brace our backbones.

Sit with me in the shade,
and we’ll wait for strangers
to eat our raisin cakes and give
us words from heaven, rolling
back the curtain of the divine
comedy of our lives, and together
we will laugh and tremble
at the year to come.

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Ryan Helvoigt
Poet

Ryan has been published in Fathom Mag, Heart of Flesh Literary Journal, and Amethyst Review. She holds an M.Div. in missions from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and lives in Durango, CO with her husband and two children.

Photography by Andreas Dress