by Sierra Lind

John 1:1

The colors of the window splash
their radiance onto me as they
glide around the crowded church.
Mom pats my tiny knee, drawing
me back into the world of reality.

I look back at the spiraling colors;
one of them decides to stop 
and dims to gray; everything 
goes silent and everyone stares on
as I vanish into the white light, gone.

Wake up, precious child.
I slowly open my eyes and find
a silvery bird shaking in my lap.
What is it, birdie? Something wrong?
Haven’t you heard about the Word?

No. What word is special than other words?
The bird flies unsteadily away before 
I get my answer. I run, trying to follow,
but I stop when the colors surround
me and I’m cloaked into shadow

… The Word was with God, and the Word
was God… I wake hearing those words
with Mom shaking me and Dad telling 
me, we have to go. Why? His reply,
Someday you’ll know. As we walk

away, I see everyone looking at us
strangely, their eyes like a mockingbird’s,
unrelenting and unreadable. But then,
everything goes silent and everyone 
stares on as if nothing had gone wrong.

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Sierra Lind’s works have appeared in Snapdragon: A Journal of Art and Healing Issue 5.1, In Parentheses website (new modernism), and Cathexis Northwest Press Our Poetica issue. You often can find her daydreaming about what she might write next, discovering a new recipe to cook, or escaping to the solitude of the country to visit family and friends. She currently lives with her husband in Charlotte, NC, and finds inspiration from the small everyday things in life.

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