Grace: A Poem

Grace is a dancer on a ballroom floor
The dark-skinned model on a Kingston beach
The prima ballerina in perfect form
Reaching out, but always out of reach

Grace is the pencil with the big eraser
The open book test where you don’t use a pen
The blue lined sheet of the blank white paper
The piano teacher who says, “Try again.”

Grace is the gazelle escaping the lion,
But also the lion, all sinew and glide—
A beauty in motion, fierce and sublime,
All coiled strength and patient pride.

Grace is the hammer but its also the nails
The thorny rose and the crown of thorns
The rolling stone, the ripping veil
"Behold the Man" and "a baby born"

Grace is brutality and grace is beauty
Grace is the cradle and grace is the cross
Grace is reality that still can elude me
Grace is my gain, and grace is His loss. 

Grace is His gift to meet my need
Grace is the dancer and grace is the dance
Grace for my actions, grace in His deed
Grace that gives all of us a second chance.