Salted Hallelujah

Salted Hallelujah

I kept my praise in jars of brine, a hush beneath the blue,

a hymn that stung the tongue to sing, but still it wanted through.

I rinsed it in the tide at dusk, where breakers fold the view—

The sea said, “Child, let salt be truth,” and I could not undo.

~~

I learned that mercy tastes like tears, that grace can burn and bless;

Those palms upturned will catch the rain, but also catch the mess.

I bowed where shorelines write and fade their cursive into foam,

and found a throat of weather there that finally called me home.

~~

You came with pockets full of sand, with names the waves once knew;

We built a chapel out of shells; the gulls became our crew.

We knelt on driftwood pews to speak the vows that storms allow—

not gilded promises of sun, but “even thunder—now.”

~~

I swallowed fear like ocean air and felt it rinse me clean;

The sky stitched silver on my skin where sorrow used to mean.

A salted hallelujah rose, a low and steady light,

the kind that doesn’t beg for dawn to prove it to the night.

~~

So if I break, I’ll break like surf—returning as I go;

each crash, a prayer that leaves a sheen; each pull, a softer no.

And when I lift my voice again, it won’t be glass or gauze,

but rough-cut praise that knows the cost—and loves you with the flaws.

~~

Let every grain that rubbed me raw become the grit I choose;

Let every tide that took away make room for what I’ll use.

A salted hallelujah, then—no sugar on the plea;

just lips of wind and hands of work and eyes that face the sea.