Cycle of Trees

I know it’s probably questionable how many people actually want to read my poetry, and so that’s why I haven’t posted any around here lately (if you are curious to look at what poems I have posted in the past, click here and sift through the Getting Creative posts; there are only a couple pages worth at this point in my blog’s life, so it’s easy hunting) but here’s another one from my vaults, written during a brief period when I wrote several Christ-inspired poems.

I have another post I’ll be doing today, but it’s more of a rant than anything else, and whatever spiritual spin I will put on it will be slight, so I thought this poem could help fill what otherwise might be a  spiritual vacuum in today’s postings.

 

  

The first tree—
A tree in a garden was our downfall
Or rather—
The man who ate off it
caused our
fall

          Oh, Adam, why?
          You poisoned your soul
          corrupted your seed
          damned descendants—
          for a taste of fruit
          You listened to Satan’s lies
          You drowned out your Father’s love.

The second tree—
—Our family tree—
—Adam’s tree
was as corrupt as his broken spirit

Humans born sinners
from the
start

Because of disobedience

But it pleased God
to make a way
to replant—
—that family tree

          A second Adam
          to obey and serve
          and make us children of God
          —again.

          Jesus.

The third tree—
A tree of death
upon which a godly man was nailed

A grim tree
But a tree from which
Jesus’s spirit leapt—
carrying our sins with him

 He restored the way
—to God

          The only son
          defeated sin and death
          reclaimed—
          what Adam lost
          —for us

The fourth tree—
The new family tree

Its fruit those who love Jesus
And who can be called
—children of God

Not because they deserve to
But because
The son of God let himself
be nailed—

To a tree.

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