2007 Poetry Contest First Place Winner
Reproach
Luke 1:25
Thus hath the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men.
He wrote, “My prayer was heard!” I thought,
Which one?
Can faithless prayer be answered? Or do old prayers
carry old faith’s fervency, like remnant
odors on old cloth? Is this the one
almost forgotten? Never gone, it would
return each time I bled, was sobbed the last
when last I lost that rite. No cleansings needed
more, but still not whole, the first commandment
failed. God saw my grief. Returning to
my bed, my husband-priest is silent, as if
lighting incense, holy tendrils joining
flesh and spirit, unfurling forerunners into
desert sky to sprout creation, water,
voice inside this barren wilderness.
A native of the South, Elizabeth Cranford teaches composition and literature at a junior college in Atlanta. She received her BA in humanities from BYU and MA in English literature in a little town in southern Georgia where football is King. She is passionate about the gospel, eating good food without guilt, finding humor in most situations, and convincing young women that being thirty and single is not the end of the world. Besides, single adult dances provide some mighty interesting characters to write about.
