Villenelle for Home

A house is nothing but sticks and mud
The world around, though styles vary
Everything comes down with a thud

Relationships are the framing studs
Whether we sleep alone or marry
A house is nothing but sticks and mud

Built with money, or sweat and blood
A house, for now, is a place to tarry
Everything comes down with a thud

Home is a place where love can bud
Humility learning to laugh and carry
A house is nothing but sticks and mud

Dig down deep before the flood
Rushes through, life’s joy to parry
Everything comes down with a thud

A house may fall, but no home is a dud
The building was always extemporary
A house is nothing but sticks and mud
Everything comes down with a thud Continue reading “Villenelle for Home”

a hundred years of eternity

it’s hard to live here
this intersection of an eternity’s worth of hopes and
a hundred years’ worth of days
when the heart of God stirs deep soul-waters
ripples flow on and on, I chase them with my eyes
blinking reluctantly as they pass my horizon
into hearts and years beyond me

it’s hard to trust here
my line of sight broken by dark valleys
each switchback offering just a glimpse
up into a country I can scarcely imagine
knowing the way, I long to know the road’s end
my endurance comes up short-sighted
listening to the echo of each footfall

it’s hard to love here
where every beautiful thing seems to die
sin crouches to devour my best intentions
tenderly laid plans harden and crack with neglect
even so, your Love’s weight hangs in the air
I find no way forward but the demands of Love
and no way back at all

it’s hard to leave here
heart nostalgic for where your touch first awakened me
from this cleft I first adored you, Beloved!
your footprints guide me through the shadows
my eyes are dim now, but your face I will seek until I find
one day years must flee before the rising sun
eternity laid out, bright and horizonless Continue reading “a hundred years of eternity”

Shalom and the Sea

The Word of God creates
Potential and limits, bound up together
Like the edges of the sea, all glorious
Endless blue embracing the shore

When seas kick against the goads
We call their rebellion a disaster
The tsunami destroys, dishonors just limits
Breaking shalom with coast and village
We wail, send aid, pray

I once had a friend named Timo
He hated boundaries, down to the sign,
“No running by the pool!”
Pontificated long of the injustice of it all
How his own freedom could be curtailed
By law, by obligation to another

No one declared it a disaster
He did not hear the bonds of shalom break
The crack! of sin’s whip on the back of his soul
The wailers never arrived, nor help
I do remember saying a prayer
Longing for the unlimited horizon
Of a bounded sea

©2026 Jacqueline Tisthammer. All rights reserved.

Continue reading “Shalom and the Sea”

Teacher, Student, Self

Long ago, I forgot you were a person
Loving this friendship for the pride of being noticed
Look closer! Whispers a deep-inside voice
At what you have neglected
The mixed-up motives and tender hurts
Real life is hard on those who lead

Long before you arrived in my life
Loving others like you made me tired
Look at how long I’ve put up with all of you!
At the same time, these joys and foibles are uniquely yours
The path to maturity is old and worn, but for you it just became
Real, and it’s right where you belong

Long years blur into fleeting decades
Loving well this week, poorly the next, pressing on
Look at all that fell away in the refining fires!
At how mettle outshines accomplishments
The dross skimmed off year by year, this is living
Real purity of heart the distant prize Continue reading “Teacher, Student, Self”

Reality

Illusions fall and shatter
Thorny shards scatter

Look carefully
Step carefully

Soul-silence sweeping
Reality’s unveiling


It is  rambling, infant chatter
undermined self-importance
It is  unending, unseen chores
doorways to humility
It is traveling to teasing chants of “Betrayal!”
bear-hug forgiveness upon return
It is  satisfaction overflowing
ambitions quietly simmering
It is  quietness and trust
strengths drawn from repentance


Crystal slivers bagged and gone
Deeper truth glitters on

Surpassing value of You
Surpassing value of Them

Precious stones strewn
These fundamentally true

©2025 Jacqueline Tisthammer. All rights reserved.

Continue reading “Reality”

naming victory

when the good work of naming each animal was finished,
after it was good and garden work turned
murderous toil in the fields, naming continued
centuries of generations naming the stars, finding gods
whole pantheons on which to depend, seers
telling stories, forceful patterns writ large
across the darkened sky; powers that be, fate and such
inevitable forces borrowing human terror to cover
naked lies. names like mars and mammon, babylon
ba’al and manifest destiny; facing defeat who escapes
powers that grasp the good to wring out evil, bodies
given to mark the seasons, down to the day
of their own destruction in the melting elements

whose story will we tell?

power over death, over stinging terror, is Human
possibility, small and gentle, Baby wrapped in body and story
easily overlooked; meekness speaking bold authority
the Son of Man and then the Body: constellations of people
appearing, turning, dying, rising; vast numbers, ever growing
vapors rising in one prayer to Creator, together
they dwell, they rule, they choose what is better
Truth, it cannot be taken from them; they tell
the great dragon’s story, the fiery fate for which it sacrificed
everything; they tell the heavenly bodies wisdom and such
timeless mysteries named in flesh and bone, fit to defeat
every remnant of evil; they know the proper name of the sun
the stars and moon, they know their own name; the Good Name
spoken until there is nothing left again but good work

©2025 Jacqueline Tisthammer. All rights reserved.

Continue reading “naming victory”

Slowing

An eternity is like a day to You
Merely a watch in a long night

Each day seems an eternity to me
This watch being all I know

Meet me in the middle?
Eternity can stretch as it likes in all directions

Present; I meet You the only place I can
Presence; You are the only place I am

Here in eternity we still live day by day
Watching together for the dawn Continue reading “Slowing”

Plans

“Martha, Martha, you are worried about many things
but only one thing matters.” – Luke 10:41 (paraphrase)

All those big plans? Sing them a lullaby
Let them rest awhile undisturbed
Some I will wake at the right time
Some will slumber until they dissipate
Will you give them to me anyway?
Child, here at my feet you are becoming
For that end, the doing may wait
Continue reading “Plans”