Watered By The Way

In a rose-drink of ancient wisdom
I stay rooted in The soil,
Willing to
Push through darker
Matters with strength
And tenderness,
Probing
The brown depths of
Despair in search
Of Holy Light.
And though
I grow weary of the
Cross-space where humble
Crawling leads me deeper
Into night,
I see with
Moon-eyes the reflected
Rose in each pool of
Tribulation.
For in these
Harder times, when thorn-pressed
In my heart, I know the flowers
Grow. Watered by the way of
Woman's weeping, they rise with
Sway of gentle Savior on their
Rough trellis of despair.

Nancy Carrington Schmidt was a part-time medical technologist and an associate minister of a small church in Dongola, Illinois when this poem appeared.