Awake by Anthony Rivisto / by Elisabeth Cooper

Alert, to His leading. 

I’m typing to bring lightning 

to the landscape of my slightly sensitive 

heightened residence, 

inviting His precedence to arrive in presence… 

presenting open hands 

with words like pillows 

to rest Your ears, 

smoke stirred up through fragrant tears, 

I am here, 

like fear


…where it should only be placed. 

hungry, pursuing, 

trusting, in faith. 

Your presence comes 

like a warm, fragrant rain. 

Aromatically activating 

all that inhabits this space, 

enacting like grace 

- this is undeserved.


Unrehearsed, 

nor reserved, 

but honestly undone. 

Pausing to shun counterfeit sums; 

religious puns 

with hopes to latch on to speech propelled, 

but the leaking of this compelling 

is telling of projectiles that can’t be contained. 

Exhaling breaths from strained frames 

that have bent to proclaim 

through pains but remained, 

through. 

So, I remain… 

in face of the Purger, 

Who breathes upon my frame, 

inviting a merger… 

My Preserver, 

who brings life to me, 

and speaks right where I deplete, 

to rewrite what I delete 

and recites speech that only He can speak. 

He’s filling my exhaling, 

instilling with each infilling 

the voids I lift up 

like holes in my soul, 

that can no longer evade Him…


This is worship, 

of the King who is higher. 

So, I bring my desire, 

like sparks on kindling… 

I breathe, 

specifically to serve up a fire. 

He in I, 

rising up for my Sire, 

pulled from the mire, 

now planted on the rock, 

dug down from the place 

where He granted that I stop, 

serving my affliction. 

Circling, rehearsing what’s missing, 

in Him, it’s dismissed in 

the midst of forgiveness, 

bore in the sins He took 

and now I witness 

like a recalling of events 

carrying the weight of His imprint.


Humbled by the loss of what I deserve 

and the gaining of what I do not. 

Grace came fully for a sinner 

that was caught, 

unable to soar free, 

now I spring forth like seeds, 

in this journey that He leads 

in each moment of abiding, 

residing in this gliding of His winds, 

and yet brought within His wings. 


So, I sing a redeemed anthem 

that echoes His heart beat, 

like speech given to that hidden 

in plain sight, 

that more might awake, 

and take flight. 


© VISTO 2019