‘Coats’ by Stephen Ramsek

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A coat of luminescent snow
Descended on my patch of grass,
And for a moment all its glow
Inflamed my eyes like burnished brass.
And in a moment it had gone,
But not withdrawn; it nimbly turned
Into a floodplain on my lawn,
A flood of slushing drops concerned
With nothing other than escape
Into the empty winter ground.
But then the sun in its bright cape
Emerged to melt the snowy mound,
And curls of mist ascended high,
The sun enticing every flake
And drop to leave its place and fly
To fill an elevated lake.
And so they did, and left my lawn
That night with but a trace of snow…
And at the coldly trembling dawn
Another layer fell. And so
The coat departed and returned,
Descending when the clouds decreed
And rising when the white sun burned.
These things recounted, this word heed:
Unlike the white of snowy plains,
Which thaws, and dims, and disappears,
Our coat of righteousness remains
And God Himself our burden bears;
The birth of one anointed child,
His guiltless life and lonely death,
Allowed us to be reconciled
To Him who‘ll grant us Heaven’s wreath.

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Stephen Ramsek, 12th grade, God’s Grace Academy, Kentucky