Coram Deo

Coram Deo

Isabel Chenot

Out where the skyline is no higher than a dusty hand
pressed on the desert scrub:
clenching the scabby, high-as-ankle bloom --
out there, there is no shadow that can stretch to hide

the traveler. Not even when the level sun plays matches
with each stub of brush,
until its stare catches their iris -- not even when
those small fires fringe the sky's.

A few birds make a desultory thrust
against the afternoon, and drop like ashes.
The scrag land shows a face
that's burning, unconsumed.

Don't flinch. Take off your shoes. Just stand
within the raking glare, the fire inside.

-- How can you keep an endless day with God
if you avoid his eyes?

---

Isabel Chenot
Poet & Author

Isabel has loved poetry for as long as she can remember. Her efforts have appeared in places like Rabbit Room, Assisi, Tinderbox, Blue Unicorn; she contributes regularly to Story Warren. Some of her poems are collected in The Joseph Tree, available from Wiseblood Books.

Photography by Cristina Gottardi