Leani's Light

Out of Africa she came, her thoughts

Wrapped in film, vision imparted at age ten,

Emboldened to risk and to write—

To take arms against a sea of indifference

To sound alarm for her people

Esther again, “If I perish, I perish”

Before King America, trembling, kneeling

Interceding for her tribe

Mother inclusive, stretching to put arms around

Faces that have names

Bodies warm but worn

Heroic woman, no longer the girl

Symbol of a Dark Continent consigned to occupy shadows

Barricades to block, seas that separate

Strokes across maps, man’s boundaries etched on earth

Divisions invisible with visible effects

To segregate and relegate

Midday sun erases shadows; the world flattens in glaring light

To reach every hidden place

Theater images pale, celluloid details recede

Words fall off scripts, dialogues cease

Reality revealed at the Son’s Appearing

Whose breath sucks pride from heartless foes

Whose hand reaches for the least of these

Whose heart holds the whole weary world

All at once

Uneven, leveled

Life more than here or there

Mysteries of human connection, faint but real

Tethered to Beyond, centered in One

One Lord One Faith One Baptism

And for now, one friend who embodies a nation

Who personifies love reaching beyond the cinema

by Carol Fruge’ 2006

frozen roses

I saw my first real snow flakes yesterday
faerie stars blowing around my face
like watery seeds waiting to find the soil
dying as they landed on their destiny
– each one unrepeated for eternity.

I saw my first global dream take flight today
random faces introduced
dialects sharing secret ambitions
alike but now owned by all
American and African pilgrims
drawing their experiences together
– expecting crops next year.

I see my first place belonging with the lepers of today
forgotten souls
orphaned children raising families
without guidance or moral reference
God turning Africa’s fate around
needle by needle, pill by pill, hug by hug
– bearing fruit until we see Him again.