This, Too, Is What It Is To Turn The Tide

A poetry collection about changing our perceptions.

I came across my college graduation cap and gown a few weeks ago while sorting through dusty boxes in our basement. Sitting in the cramped storage space next to the hum of the HVAC system, I put it on. I let myself remember what it felt like to wear it that day, to walk across the blinding stage, to feel confident about most things, to feel as though I had accomplished all of the important learning. When I look back, though, most of the learning that has turned my life upside down has happened since then—even more importantly, most of my unlearning.

It’s like this: I taught in an elementary school for several years, and the kindergarten students were secretly my favorite. Most days, I would watch them become increasingly frustrated while practicing their handwriting, until finally they would tear eraser holes through their paper in a blind rage.

What I am trying to say is, this is me. I am the eraser-wielding kindergartner, tearing holes through my paper, trying to erase the scribbles that do not belong.

This collection of poems will give you a little taste of some of the things I’ve been erasing and re-writing and erasing, again. I hope it brings you comfort and a bit of freedom to think about how and what you’ve been changing over the years, too.

Change is scary, but sometimes—no, often—it is the only way forward.

This collection contains four poems exploring what it means to change our perceptions. 

01 - changing our perceptions of God

02 - changing our perceptions of our own, imperfect selves

03 - changing our perceptions of salvation

04 - changing our perceptions of the mundane

Conversation in the Church Bathroom

I do not know what your mother told you 
or how you felt in your father’s presence. 
I do not know if anger sat on your counter,
creased and waiting to be unfolded. 

I do not know if you learned 
of a despondent Jesus
who sits in the corner rocker, judging. 

Tell me what you’re scared of 
and I’ll tell you all the things 
you never heard over all that racket: 

You do not have to perform.
You do not have to obey or else. 
You do not have to have good answers. 

Go ahead and turn over every heavy stone,
jut your chin, try out that word. 

It is ok to stumble, 
It is ok to rage and sulk,
It is ok to show Him your whole self 
and let it be what it is. 

He is not some fragile god. 
 
He knows how restless you are,  
sees how you hunger

for the life after this one.  

---

Re-Parenting

I catch her despairing 
over the shape of her R’s
and the stubborn knots 
in her tangled shoelaces.

I watch her face crumple, 
try to decide if her propensity 
for perfectionism is some sort of gene 
or some sort of parenting flaw 
or some sort of consequence of being human,
or all of it. 

Whatever the case may be, 
I say the words I wanted to hear:

Be gentle with your one, dear heart.
Love does not sit on the fence watching 
before deciding how much of itself to give.

Perhaps when she is thirty, 
she will have one voice 
in the back of her mind urging
her to keep kicking 
against shame’s heavy heel.

I, too, have begun hearing 
this voice in the echo chamber 
of my own mind:

Be gentle with your one, dear heart.
Love does not sit on the fence watching 
before deciding how much of itself to give.

God?
I ask, forever struck 
by One who does not parse 
His passion for me
into unpredictable pieces. 

---

Doors and Magic Words

Ask Him into your heart
when you are in preschool. 
Utter one prayer with some magic words 
and you get a one-way ticket to Heaven. 

(Everyone wipes their brows in relief). 

This is salvation, right? 
Him, knocking at the door?
You and me, peering through the peephole
to see what He is selling, 
cracking the door one half inch?

Fifteen years later, He laughed  
when I reminded Him of all this door business. 

Listen, He said. 

I do not stand on the other side 
waiting politely for some invitation.

(You are thinking of solicitors). 

I do not require any magic words.

(You are thinking of fairy godmothers).  

I do not want to live quietly in your heart 
while you go on doing good things. 

(You are thinking of karma, 
you are thinking of the self help 
book with the giant smiling face). 

You do not need to please me
for me to throw my arms around your neck
and say, Ah, there you are!

(You are thinking of your mother, 
you are thinking of your father). 

You do not need to ask me into your heart.

Look at how you lock and bolt and slam,
look at how you press your lips together tight,
cross your arms over your chest. 

Look at how I am still here. 

---

Turning the Tide

I understand 
none of this feels urgent. 

While the world turns itself 
inside out with rage and marching
and shrill advocacy,

we are here, 
bending over the book about the fish, 
praising the block creation, 
scrambling the eggs,
tucking the stuffed bear 
against the fevered cheek.

We are answering the existential question 
while yielding to oncoming traffic,
pacing in the pitch black nursery, 
walking the children to the toilet 
at some ungodly hour. 

Which part of this feels critical?
Which part of this will garner applause?

None of it. Amen.
Let it be so.

There are many foolish ways to live a life, 
but this is not one of them. 

While our children squall 
in our arms, we keep time 
with the only slow breath 
in the room.

We inhale, we exhale.

We remember this, too, 
is what it is to turn the tide.

---

Thanks for reading, friends. I’d love to hear what resonated with you in this collection. Tell me—what changes have you been wrestling with?

Here’s to erasing and trying again, to embracing change and finding our way forward.

xo,

Krista

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Photos by David Pennington on Unsplash,  Buchen WANG on Unsplash, Thought Catalog on Unsplash, and Andrey K on Unsplash, Shreyansh Shukla on Unsplash

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