Poetry
Table of Contents
‘Aumakua
Ghosts Be With Me (True Facts, No Lies 2007)
Getting a Grip
Gift From The Sea (True Facts, No Lies 2007)
Ghost House
Gena (True Facts, No Lies 2007)
Dream Dog
Empire of Therapy, Army of Muscles
For David: Diamond Willow
Aialik Glacier
For Tamara
For Rolf: Riding the Range (True Facts, No Lies 2007)
No Na Pua (‘Oiwi Journal 2002)
In My Mind
Uncle Pierre
Aunty Betty
Moffett’s Lexicon
Sale Career (True Facts, No Lies 2007)
Year’s End & Year’s Beginning
‘AUMAKUA
I have seen them turn
their heads around
like a pueo on a perch
in the wild place where
the sun comes up
or the earth goes down
Nobody can steal your
soul they say
soaring like the ‘iwa
their elbows bent
They have seen me as if
my skin were water
seen the shadows
of my insides and known
all there is to know
You have seen them too but
they shifted shape upon the wind
so you might have missed
what they really are
The trick is to attend always
to the wind, to watch
the clouds, and touch the sea
spray sticking to your skin
The trick is to close
your eyes and see
them in the wild place
where the earth goes
down and nobody
can steal your soul
GHOSTS BE WITH ME
I asked The Spirit Grandmothers
for their advice about my life.
“Listen more, speak less,
and then we will sing you a song.
“But not now. We’re too busy
cleaning your house
so we can move in.”
GETTING A GRIP
When we were little, my brother
and I invented a travelling
game called “Flying Saucies.”
By the time
we had decked ourselves
in stray ribbons and dead rags,
we were too tired to play anymore,
and anyway Mama was calling
us to supper.
Sixty years later
my brother is gone.
I am playing “Flying Saucies” solo,
spending all my time
polishing mirrors and wiping
wet dog tracks from the floor,
Gathering tax information
and getting my molars crowned,
reading wads of messages
from Medicare printed
in Flying Saucie Language
Of course
I don’t understand it,
having never lifted off
in my space suit
of rags and ribbons
Surely it is not too late
to launch. I’ve dusted
enough, and scrimped
so I have sufficient
ribbons and two small
cheeses for emergency.
Au ‘voir!
GIFTS FROM THE SEA
One morning a soggy
tennis ball
the next evening
a partly husked
coconut
then a perfect
stick
a week later
the prize of all, a dead
fish
Not what I have in mind
a rare purple cowry shell
or handblown fishing float
but surely a dog’s best
dreams come true
GHOST HOUSE
Planed notched logs on the Oregon prairie
Where once were windows
only the frames gape, listing left
Stones tumble from the chimney
Shakes peel from the roof
Big sage creeps closer
Will it peer inside soon,
its dry powdery smell mingling
with ghosts within?
Will it step over the slivered
threshhold, its roots tangling
where a family once ranched
or tried to?
Will the poplars planted against
the west wind still stand
when sage is all that’s left
among the scattered shakes and stones?
Will the wind sing a dirge to
whoever planed those logs and split
the shakes by hand
or sing a praising hymn for those
who dared these things on the
unrelenting prairie?
GENA
I slice apples, because
I don’t know what else to do,
Romes from our own garden
green-skinned, blushing
on the sunny sides
some a little wormy
not like commercial Romes
red as Santa’s perfect cheeks
even on a day as dark as this
I got the email an hour ago
as soon as I saw
“Eugenia Lokalia Sasada”
your full name in the subject line
I knew the news
You have passed on in autumn,
the season you couldn’t understand,
sounding out words in your American
reader in a third-grade
Moloka‘i schoolroom, 1951.
“What is autumn?” you asked
your teacher. “Do we have it?
I don’t think so.”
Only a month ago you thanked me
for a bookmark I made
with last year’s leaves pressed
from Oregon’s autumn,
sharp and pointing maple fingers
dark as garnet, fat hearts of aspen,
soft yellow spotted by rain,
a single blade of willow,
cresecent-shaped, like koa
in your beloved Moloka‘i uplands.
Two weeks later you called,
sounding your typical self
“Hey Babe, I haven’t heard
from you in so long I thought
you might have died.”
You told me it was a cool daya
in Kalaupapa even though
it was only September.
“It feels like autumn,” you said,
as if you knew what that was.
Maybe the bookmark did it,
or the pressed leaves I sent you
in seasons past. Or maybe you
knew that winter was on the tail
of your autumn day.
The email news surprises me so
that tears are not ready yet.
I’ll slice the autumn apples
while I wait.
DREAM DOG
Dream dog
You come to the side of my bed
Paw the bed
Mom, it's me
Here I am
Mom, are you all right?
I have to know
Puppie, you were my
Dream Dog
For years when
I noticed every Collie
Every Sheltie on the street
Greeted them
Or talked to their people
Held my hand out in friendship
Dreaming of living with you
My Dream Dog
Then you came to life
Perhaps you dreamed your way
Into life
Into my life
You dreamed
Yourself into a womb
A litter of puppies
And us
Into a way of finding you
In the squirming lot.
You made sure we'd pick you
We would have picked another
But you dreamed us into
Our choice
When we made it
And we brought you to our home
I cried and smiled in joy
You so little on my lap.
You never cried at night
Not once
Just curled to sleep on
Your litter-smelling towel
I'd put with you some days
Before you left your fellows.
Of course you never cried.
I thought it was the puppy-perfumed towel
But now I see it was
That you had dreamed yourself
To us.
I think you knew much better than I
The power of dreams
No wonder you dream-traveled
To me
Just to check
We loved our earth years
Together
You and I
My Little Darling
I still say Goodnight, Little Sweetheart
Good morning, Sweet Puppie
Hi Puppie, I love you so much.
Yes, Dream Dog
I am all right
I have more work to do here
Life is work
Joy is work, true work
You were a work dog
To take care of us
Thank you, dear friend,
Taking care of us even now
I see you on the path
Just as so many times we hiked
You ahead on the trail
Then looking back to see
If we were coming.
Yes, Dream Dog
I'll be along soon
We'll know when the work is done
And it's time to
Dream ourselves into the next ring
Of the circles of dreams
EMPIRE OF THERAPY, ARMY OF MUSCLES
Gluteus Maximus sits on his imperial ass
his commodious underpinning
matched only by a head so fat
that just yesterday he had to have his wreath
of golden laurel stretched by a hatter
His nepotistic ministers plenipotentiary
Gluteus Medias and Gluteus Minimus
stand behind him and wink
it makes me think I should quit
going to physical therapy every week
The generals and senators of course
promote their own agendi
Piriformis says Sire, we need more forms
some adjustments in the way
we keep the books and all will be propitious
Sartorius mounts a dark rage
and calls for legions to march forth
to trample intellectual babblers like Iliacus,
Soleus, Popliteus and the cretin twins
Zygomaticus Major and Minor
Oh no pipes Latissimus Dorsi,
Send the Ilio-Tibial Band to charm the hordes
swarming outside the royal chambers.
Let there be a solo on the new and magical
instrument, the subclavius
I should speak again to these dithering Latins
the Longissimus cousins
the Spinalis clan, the Iliocostalis troupe
but it all bodes for wasted effort
instead I’ll use my unnamed muscles
to hoist a goblet of vintage mead
and leave the Empire of Therapy behind
FOR DAVID: DIAMOND WILLOW
I work a stick for you
brought from the north long years ago
over windworn tundra
and pathless scree
I rasp the bark, discovering its dark diamonds
Recessed in the twists
Polish the creamy underlayer until it shines like worn marble
My fingers feeling in the sunken facets
secrets of the willow
Around the top, where you will grip this stick
I lash your talismans:
two claws of bear and feathers
from the trickster, Raven
My hands glow with willow spirit
and the whispering song of the northland
Wherever you take
this length of diamond willow
you will know the ghost of me.
For The Old Woodsman from The Pretty Lady
Christmas 2003
AIALIK GLACIER
Seals laze on bergie bits
Melting shards of icebergs
Floating at the foot of an immensity
Of ice-cloaked mountains
Calved from Aialik glacier
Sliding seaward
Fissures croak and creak
Like tectonic plates in ice
Frozen chunks sliding, rattling
From Aialik’s thousand feet of face
Yet the seals do not so much as twitch
Just ride out the tide and the ripples
Where the sea creeps
Up the earth by progressive meltings
We have become accustomed to groaning ice
Our boat rocking to its rhythm
When the seals, sleek and sudden,
Slip into the icy waters
In a blink Aialik roars
A berg as big as a French cathedral
Plunges from her face
Blue as robins’ eggs but translucent
Aialik’s exposed body
Glossy as alabaster at the break
On deck we lose our footing
Boat rolling in churning tidewater
Aialik has calved for us
The seals return to their bergie rafts
If they have looked at us
Dancing on our heaving deck
Calling out our wows and ohs
Maybe they are laughing
Because we marvel
At an ordinary day
FOR TAMARA
In no more than a quarter hour
the daughter whose eyes
just revealed smile wrinkles
whose silver-shot hair
glimmers in noon sun
has gone so far around
the stretching crescent of beach
her form barely suggests
the figure of a person
Is this how the final
leave-taking will be
the breathing rhythm of the sea
and dearest ones of life
becoming fainter and smaller
until I squint but cannot see
so much as a moving speck
Farewell perhaps will be
best like this
no need for words
Just breathe the sea and sun
know I smiled back
and wished her a lovely walk
FOR ROLF: RIDING THE RANGE
Little city cowboy
Only six years old
Six-guns in his holsters
One tooth missing
From his cowboy smile
He lashes his broomstick
Horse to a gallop
Dime store hat
Low on his head,
Lasso whirling,
Corralling stray young heifers
In our rhododendron hedge
That was almost 40 years
The stick horse
And string riata have vanished
From our backyard prairie
Guns rust in an attic toy bin
Under squash-nosed teddies
But my cowboy still rides
Rounding up half-grown words
And stray piebald phrases
Cutting out this one and that
With his sure but unseen horse
And driving the very best
Upward to summer range
Where they will fatten at poems
NO NA PUA
The day you wed
the time was high tide
when you stood on the beach
in ceremony.
You asked me to accept a lei
for Peter, my brother
for Dad, you said
Oh, and that’s not all
you know where he is
will you please deliver it?
Ten, no eleven years now
he’s been in the sea
where we lifted his ashes
from a pū‘olo at dawn
to spread them in swirling waters
to live where we had always lived
And so it was
at your wedding’s end
I took your charge
Your father’s friend Lopaka
nodded at me, and I knew it was time
I handed him
my own lei from my neck
and took your lei
in a new pū‘olo in my hand
your bridal gift for Dad
Lopaka said, No, wait
another lei, from me
fragrant white ginger twined
with the green power of woven ti
this one from Lindsey
feather blaze of ‘ohai ali‘i
He laid these, and my lei over my wrist
enveloped me in his arms
and we sobbed and sobbed
I know you could see our
great gasps of weeping
but did you hear us whisper ragged
“We loved him so much?”
And then we parted
I into the sea at your request
a slow march
to the high tide bursting.
I held na lei high on my arm
your pū‘olo up in my other hand
the water dimming green and gray
the last-light sky translucent blue
clouds gold-rimmed
in the waning sun of Kāne
I shouted to the sea
Mahalo no kēia lā
Thank you for this day
At last I marched past break line
into the blue neck-deep
gave up my footing, swam free
Turning landward, moving with the current
I saw you on the beach
you and John and na pua
All our children
I released my own lei
as on the day we strewed his ashes
I let loose the ohai ali‘i
then the ti
swells rose and fell, and I with them
you waited and watched
the sea throbbed
like the beat of our hearts
and pulse of our blood
I unwound your pū‘olo
unwound your lei within
the procession of na lei
danced west upon the current
west to the setting sun
west in the time of the long-shadowed day
when sometimes Peter and I –
were we eight and twelve
or just a little older? –
could not ignore the call
and we’d dash into the water
wearing all our clothes
Na lei danced west and still you stood
I surfed a fine swell
praying I wouldn’t tumble
to the bottom
but knowing if I did
Peter would be laughing
As it was, this run
would have won a nickel bet
in those yesterdays so long ago
I caught the wave
and I was with him, your Dad
whose one wish
in the long weeks of the last summer
was just to go to the water
I was with him
and with the rest of them in the sea
And with all of you on the sand
Na pua
And then in the windward twilight
I came from the waters
of Peter and family gone on
into your smiles
blotching you wet with salt
and knowing then our truths
Hawaiian hearts last forever
The sea is our refuge, our peace, our bond
So go to the sea, my dears
Na pua, my children
all of you, go to the sea
to heal all wounds
to cure the heart
to share the soul
for the sea holds all
the past
the now
the yet to come
Go to the sea, my dears
and know to say
Mahalo no keia lā
Thank you for this day
IN MY MIND
If ever I think of little blonde girls
around the corner from grandma’s house
in oldtime Fargo
one word comes to mind: envy
In their picket-fenced back yard
they possessed a real playhouse
white clapboard, paned glass windows
kid-sized ruffled curtains
toy dishes above the sink and stove
upholstered chairs in the parlor
hobnail glass lamp on a little table
the door’s brass handle locked
with a little girl brass key
Over the fence in the alley
I saw this playhouse a hundred times
once I got to go inside
We cobbled our playhouse from wood boxes
planks and barrels we found stashed
in what had been grandma’s barn
before keeping a milk cow in town was not allowed
we rigged a roof of Army blanket
propped on old bean yard stakes
fried grassy mud pies and graham crackers
on our stove formerly two orange crates
served them on chipped and rusted
enameled tin we found at the dump
back in those long ago days
when dumps were accepted treasure grounds for kids
Our playhouse changed with each scavenge
and with our fancy of the day
I recall it being a train, a boat, a castle
merely by the flick of the Army blanket
the shifting of two barrels or a box
a forceful declaration to the air
and it became a penny candy store
Some six decades later
I’m sorry those little blonde girls
taking tea in their little white house
had nothing whatsoever to imagine.
UNCLE PIERRE
He died about three
in the morning
She thinks
Quiet, too quiet
When she checked
She stayed with him
Until 5:30
A decent time
To call the kids
They'd decided on
Cremation
But the only crematory
Was in Hilo
Hours away
How rude to send him
By ambulance
How cold, uncaring
Kimo and a grandson
Have a station wagon
By then
Rigor mortis set in
Good thing it was
A big American
Station wagon
Kimo and sister Lani
Dressed him in his
Favorite red and white
Aloha shirt
And his new red shorts
Wait, wait
She said
Don't go with those shorts
Someone can
Use them
Put on his
Puka ones
They put a pillow under
His head and covered
Him with a blanket
Cover his face, Lani said
No, said Kimo
He must see on his
Last journey
Which would have been
Fine except for the
Stop for gas in Waimea
A lady at the
Next pump
Peered in the back
Window taking a
Too-long look
Grandson said
It's OK lady, we
Didn't do it.
They opened the box
Of ashes on the
Kitchen table
By handfuls they
Put the ashes in a
Lau hala basket
They'd rather save
The koa urn for
Everybody especially
Since Uncle Wright
Made it
Uncle is now the
Last of the blood
A generation
Nearly gone
At the churchyard Kimo
Laid in the grave
Four kukui nuts to
Light the way
And ti leaf sandals
A friend made
So he could walk to the
Land of Po
And a coconut frond
Headband to wear
Backwards to be able
To find his
Way back home
Kindy Sproat and his
'Ukulele just showed up
A Mormon in an
Episcopal church
Singing Amazing Grace
At the burying
The wind blew as it always
Does in Kohala
And she and all the kids
Belted out
Onward Christian Soldiers
Loud and off key
Just the way
He liked itGranddaughter 'Ilima stayed
Behind, the last to get
The stomach flu
In a family purge
'Ilima loved him but couldn't
Bear to barf in his grave
So when she thought
They'd be singing to the
Hole she went
Into his closet
And hugged his clothes
And cried.
She told Uncle Wright
The last of the lot
"The cheese stands alone"
And he caught the plane
And went home
When everyone else
Left too
She gave away all
Pierre's clothes
Rearranged the furniture
Flew to Honolulu and back
And went out to
Lunch, and dinner too
And they all told
The story of
The puka shorts
And the lady at the
Gas pump
And they laughed
And cried
And they kept right
On loving
As they always have
AUNTY BETTY
It's best to just die
And not linger
Have a nice little service
And everybody can say
They're sorry
Oh, you get old and you
Burp and fart and whistle
Everything under knee height
is No Man's Land
Every time I stand up
It's a victory
I'm ready to go
Pierre has been unsupervised
For four years now
No telling what
He's up to
With Edith you know
They sang Amazing Grace
And said The Lord's Prayer
And popped her in the ground
I keep trying to die
But something comes up
Every time
Now I can't do a thing
But drink
One of these nights
That shot of vodka
Will be the kiss of death
And I'll hop the twig
But before I go
I would really like to make
ZEPHYR
On a triple word score.
MOFFETT’S LEXICON
Well, blow me down
Da buggah made like he get plenty simoleons
Da cops study his M.O.
Pinch him pulling a fast one
He thought would be duck soup
But now he’s hanging on the ropes
Ho, was always high hat
Always saying howzit
When really was humbug
Never like share his hooch
Lose fight wit’ him
He really no mo’ nutting
Sweating bullets and sucking wind
Waste time, dat buggah
Nothing but bull squeak
And no mo’ kālā
Nobody speaks like this now
But he was young in a time
When boxing was big
Women were dames
Kids were small change
Da buggah really wen’ talk li’ dat
Ne’mine if he was on the hooch
Or on the wagon
Taking a leak or sitting on the can
I remember
Because I was his small change
SALES CAREER
I remember writing on my order
“form,” penciling in Palmer script
“One box No. 4 assortment, $1.25
Customer: Aunty Nina.”
Aunty Margaret ordered fancy,
a box of 25 Christmas cards
and some imprinted stationery
with blue scalloped edges
for my cousin Ann
I myself could afford no such thing
because of saving the profits
Those sweat-hot Augusts
before sixth and seventh grade
I made my entrepreneurial
rounds of ten more aunts,
the ladies of our neighborhood
and my mother’s other friends.
Two or three of the unrelated
resisted my foldout
samples ordered from an ad
in Mama’s Ladies’ Home Journal.
But every aunt graciously
chose at least one box
from the catalog of ugly cards,
keeping an eye on birthdays to come,
maybe even mine,
and Christmas too.
Only decades later did I realize
that the other eye
was on a little girl already
someday going to college
via the Cheerful Card Company,
White Plains NY
twenty-five cents a box.
YEAR’S END AND YEAR’S BEGINNING
I started making my own holiday cards when I was sixteen. At first they had a Christian theme. Later they quoted from writers like Tennyson, Black Elk, Thoreau, Malvina Reynolds, Alice Walker, and native American and Polynesian mythology. Eventually I started writing my own poems as my wish for people at the turn of the year. Here are a dozen recent original verses under this collective title.
WHISPERS
2025
Pā hawanawana kou alo
Whispering wind on your face
Nā leo o nā kupuna
Voices of the ancestors
E pilialoha, ma’ane’i mai a kahakai
Beloved, come here to the edge of the sea
Ke kali nei mākou ‘ia ‘oe
We are waiting for you
E himeni pū kākou i keao
To sing with us at dawn
Inspired by learning that an additional meaning of our ancestral name, Pā, is “blow, as wind.”
MIGRATION
2024
Ho‘omākaukau, says ka ho‘okele, the navigator
Make ready! And yet
Be patient. Ho‘omanawanui
Only when the west wind rises
Will we sail for where the night sky changes
Called north and east to islands
We shall find by stars rising
By currents, swells, seabirds
By sunrise, sunset, and clouds reflecting shallows
When the west wind blows
Holo mua, move forward, says ka ho‘okele
Launch our wa‘a on this vast and rolling sea
In a moon or more we shall pull up a new island
As did Maui the Demigod
With Mānaiakalani, his magical fish hook of stars
Inspired by Hawai’i’s double-hulled voyaging canoe Hōkūle’a, Star of Gladness
CONVERGENCE
2023
Land, sea, sky
where they converge
lies the seat of life
and gift of spirit
In every moment
acknowledge unseen power
thank those gone before
promise those yet to come
Then land, sea and sky will dance
through days and seasons
Forever
Inspired by the beach where I grew up in Kailua, O’ahu, where my family has lived since 1940 and has conducted namings, weddings, purifications, commemorations and release of the ashes of those spirits who have passed on.
PATHWAYS
2022
Pathways in the sea
Revealed by swells, cloud, wind
In rise and set of certain stars
Ancient knowledge in our na’au
Our innermost knowing
The pathways lead where we can thrive
Convergence of land, sea and sky
We raise a joyous call: We have arrived!
In gratitude lies more deep knowing
Our kuleana: Mālama pono honua mau loa
Care for this place, this gift of home
In every season
With every turn of tide
Each rise and set of moon and son
forever
Inspired by the Naming ceremony I conducted for two young girls in our family, Kealakai and Kāheale’a Roska.
MOON SWIM
2021
Hele mai ‘au, says Mahina, the moon
Come to me and swim
Tonight is māhealani, full as I can be
I will reveal what is hidden by sun
By wind and breaking wave
In clouds of surf-tumbled sand
Nānā ilalo, look below
Ocean floor shimmering
With opalascent sand
Your own legs dancing
As if through antique glass
Ho’olohe, said Hina the goddess, listen
Your kuleana is to both see and know
To be pono, to act wisely
If you, a human, should falter
With bare feet cross the cold night sand
Into the silvery sea
Inspired by a moonlight swim with my daughter, Leiokanoe. Hina is the goddess associated with the moon.
ALOHA
2020
I welcome you
With my sacred presence
Face to face
Sharing the breath of life
Aloha
I give you my smile
My attention, my listening
My love, my laughter
Aloha
I gladly share with you
My home, my table
Breeze and blossom
Misting rain and setting sun
Aloha
When we part
Whether sooner or later
We shall not forget
Souls mingled
Bonded spirit friends
Aloha
Take with you
My living presence
Keep me in your heart
Walk with those gone before
Aloha
Give
Receive
Now and all tomorrows
Live Aloha
PRAY
2017
Pray to the four directions
Again and again to ten
Call to forty unseen spirits
Seeking what’s always been
Pray to the East to cleanse your mind
South to heal all wounds
Pray to the West to guide your life
North so love abounds
Pray to the four directions
Each one in its turn
Search four hundred days of the seasons
Until you finally learn
Pray to the East in your grandfathers’ way
South of long ago
Pray to the West for the rest of your days
North for love of your soul
Pray to the four directions
Four hundred days times ten
Praise the ever-turning Earth
And find what’s always been
Pray to the East to all the gods
South for what is gone
Pray to the West for here-and-now
North for yet-to-come
Pray to the four directions
Four thousand days and more
Pray at work, pray at rest
God is everywhere
Pray to the East, South, West and North
Pray in banks of four
Lose yourself to find yourself
Give thanks and praise once more
Pray to the four directions
Again, again and again
To forty thousand spirit gods
Forever and ever amen
Pray to the four directions
Again, again and again
To forty thousand spirit gods
Forever and ever amen
Forever and ever amen
Forever and ever amen
Based on Ojibwa prayers to the four directions and on the Hawaiian mystical multiples of four, especially multitudes of omnipresent gods.
THE COMMAND
2016
Let us gather our blessings
Turn our faces to wind and sky
And shout our psalms of thanks
Then we shall be ready
to go where we are needed
whenever we are called
and with those gifts
begin another day
of our true and loving work
GRACE
2015
Grace
Gift of peace
Gentle patience
Gratitude
Quiet joy
Strength of spirit
Beauty, tact, compassion
Wrapped in white gossamer
Tied with a silk thread
Glowing within
Grace brings
In manner and motion
Songs of a loving heart
THE WEST WIND
2013
Who fished up this fair island
From the edge of the sea?
Our spirit homes
Sing us to them yet again
So we may restore
The sacred gardens of our souls
BEATITUDES
2008
Blessed is clear sky
For it brings us spirit sounds
Blessed are the clouds
For they bring us illusion
Blessed is the sunlight
that we may see clearly
Blessed is shadow
That we may see depth
Bless is the earth world
For it gives us form
Blessed is the spirit world
For it gives us dimension
Blessed is the sea
That we know the boundless
Blessed is the land
That we know its beauty
Blessed are all people
As we travel in life
Bless are those gone before us
For they light our way
Inspired by the Tao concept of yin and yang, the Hawaiian creation chant Kumulipo. and Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Mount.
PRAYER FLAGS
2001
Earth
Blanket our seeds in darkness
Keep our roots when we grow above
Accept us once again
When our work is done
Air
Bring us breath at birth
Cast our seeds and thoughts
Give us room to fly in grace
Whisper carefully of wisdom
Fire
Shine on our days of growth
Sprout our dreams in light
Kindle understanding in our hearts
Prepare us to begin again
Water
Stir our sleeping seeds of love
Bathe us in abiding strength
Immerse us in forgiving all
Fill our lives with rightful purpose