Entry #27

"Atonement of Atomes"
by K. Lawson Gilbert


on that dark day
of the crucifixion
the sky opened up
and the moon
illuminated our sins

was it sweat or blood
that ran that day
was the altar marble
or pale cold skin

why still the darkness
creates our shroud
that hangs off beaten bones
and stirs us to awaken now
as undivided atomes

we were electrified
by an Ionic Savior
his words in us were charged
did not we feel them
stirring in our wombs and
burning in our hearts

we lost an electron
on the midnight road
but in our souls we keep
electricity to light the way
and tears of blood to weep.

[K. Lawson Gilbert was raised in the hills of West Virginia, an area rich in folklore, legends, and superstitions. “The hills and hollows were my muse,” she says. When she was five years old, she wrote a poem about a cardinal sitting on a snowcapped bush. Her mother made her recite it to every passerby. After all these years, she still sees the world as poetry, and still writes about what she sees. She is a teacher, poet, and writer and lives in Centermoreland, Pennsylvania.]