Wash.
In some forsaken landscape,
A desert.
The bright sun beaming down,
Burn.
Nothing near, except the desert’s scorn.
Alone.
No, very dry bones.
Death all around.
Shaking, blood on my hands,
Fear.
There, all at once,
Came a blanket of water,
A flood.
Unstoppable force upon me,
Irresistible.
The waves above,
Crash.
Tried escaping out,
Futile.
Body slammed beneath
Sunk.
There, laid me down,
On some high hill,
Awoke.
The seas gone, breathing again
Alive.
Blood off the hands,
Wash.
Before me, my eyes could not believe,
A river.
Step forward, stepped in,
A coldness.
Lean down, leaned in,
A drink.
Eyes moving, noticing,
Green.
Trees, bushes, grass, all around,
Life.
Farther down the banks,
Others.
People all around, in desperation,
To the river.
There I stood,
“If Hatred is the Desert
Then Forgiveness is the Flood,
And, Grace is the River left after,”
—Drew Seitz