all saints

“Open the gates,

    so that the righteous nation that keeps faith
    may enter in.”  Isaiah 26:2

as you open

the gates to

your community, we find

the expected ones

waiting to enter, but

you hold up your hand

so

the broken and the bedraggled,

the grieving and the gobsmacked,

the forgotten and the foolish,

the weary and the wiseacres

may go in first

© 2019 Thom M. Shuman