Tree of Jesse

The seed burrows into the earth’s belly,

Silence hovers over the harrowed earth    

Something stirs down deep      

The soil shifts – a silent moan emits…

A birth, a birth of grit and groans and loam      

A seed splits – a presence sifts

the soil and bleeds a tendril of green,

Up, up into the light    

The umbilical cord of a fragile life; sacrifice

Of a shell split open, torn apart, releasing

a holiness born of hurt,

a hope born of humility,

a respiration of grandeur

so minute and so magnificent

the sand and seas and leas and land

explode in exaltation:

The Womb of the World delivered a promise

From the hollowed earth sprung a hallowed birth;

A seed of solace, sown,

A shoot of sovereignty, born.

The featured image is courtesy of Aaron Burden. You can find his remarkable photographic work at Unsplash or on his website here. 

Christina Brown

A founding member of The Cultivating Project, Christina has been fascinated by beauty her whole life and continues to marvel at the way it leads our hearts straight to our Creator. Christina pursues God’s goodness through a range of creative endeavors, from creating magical parties, crafting a fine-tuned sonnet, laboring devotedly to nurture a garden in the dismal soils of the Rocky Mountain foothills, deftly wrangling words into fine essays, and cultivating a palette for the good, true, and beautiful in her two little sprites. She and her husband Brian are the founders of the Anselm Society based in Colorado Springs, whose mission and calling is a renaissance of the Christian Imagination. She serves as the Director of the Anselm Society Arts Guild and her creative work can be found at LiveBeautiful.today and on IG.