Dear Reader,

Here are two versions of the same poem — one in free verse, one in rhyme.

They both speak of the three things that remain when everything else falls away: Faith, Hope, and Love.

I wrote them as two different doors into the same quiet room.

Step through whichever one feels most open to you.

Or walk through both.

May these words meet you gently,

and may something in them stay with you

long after the page is closed.

— the poet

Free verse version

In the quiet cathedral of the heart

where the soul kneels in silence,

Faith stands—

a pillar of pure, living light,

stronger than diamond,

impossible to break.

It is the white root that drinks the darkness

and blossoms into a star.

No storm can shake it;

no night can put it out.

Faith is the still center

around which the broken world turns—

one clear, unwavering note

that keeps sounding

beneath every crashing hour.

Hope arrives like the first silver crack

in the black cloth of night—

a pale, stubborn petal

opening against a hard sky.

It is the green shoot

that splits stone with soft, relentless force,

the long flight of wild geese

sewing bright threads across a torn sky.

Hope tastes like rain on dry earth,

smells like crushed flowers and far-off fire.

It gathers the broken pieces of yesterday

and breathes them into a path of trembling dawn.

And Love—

Love is the final great flood,

the scarlet tide that covers every shore.

It is incense melting into flame,

the slow, beautiful drowning

that suddenly becomes flight.

Love pours itself out completely—

soft crimson velvet over bone and breath,

the ocean that kisses the farthest cliff

and never asks the cliff to answer.

It is the last language of dying stars,

the sudden recognition that leaps

between two lonely hearts

across the glittering dark.

These three remain,

woven into one shining whole:

Faith the golden thread that never frays,

Hope the silver thread that never ends,

Love the living color that soaks everything

until every part of the world—

seen and unseen—

burns with the same unbearable beauty.

Rhymed version

In the quiet cathedral of the heart

the soul kneels down in silence deep;

Faith stands—a pillar of pure light,

stronger than diamond, sure and steep.

The white root drinks the dark of night

and blossoms into star so bright.

No storm can shake its steady throne;

no night can claim it for its own—

one clear, unwavering, living tone

beneath the hours that crash and moan.

Hope comes, a silver crack of day

torn through the black cloth of the night,

a pale, stubborn petal that will stay

and open to the hardest light.

Green shoot that splits the stone apart

with soft, relentless, growing art;

wild geese that sew the torn sky through

with threads of gold and silver-blue.

It tastes of rain on earth long dry,

of crushed sweet flowers and fire nearby,

and gathers pieces broken, sere,

to breathe a trembling dawn appear.

And Love—the final scarlet tide

that covers every waiting shore;

incense that melts in flame and glides,

the drowning that becomes pure soar.

It pours itself out, nothing kept—

crimson velvet where bone has slept,

the ocean kissing farthest stone

and asking nothing back, alone.

Last language of the dying stars,

the leap across the glittering bars

where two lone hearts at last are known

within the dark that is their own.

These three remain, one shining whole:

Faith the gold thread that holds the soul,

Hope the silver that will not cease,

Love the color that brings release

until the seen and unseen burn

with beauty none can ever unlearn.

To God be the glory always and only.**