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.**
