Editor's Note: Aaron Belz is the author of three collections of poems—Glitter Bomb (Persea), Lovely, Raspberry (Persea), and The Bird Hoverer (BlazeVOX)—and a chapbook, Plausible Worlds (Observable Books). He lives in North Carolina. If you ever have a chance to hear him read, don't miss it.
Personal Message Guidelines
Two years ago
we embarked on a journey to develop
a narrative
that could be used across
the enterprise—
both internally and externally.
The goal? To unite
Aaron Belz around a single
guiding idea, one
torch carried by a small, horrible
child whose eyes
have been gouged out by marauders.
Pushed back
by a polleny headwind he trudges
on. Uh oh, he is now
beset by droids from a future in which
shared learnings
will be key to our ongoing success.
The Real Question
The real question being how will you address these issues moving forward
so that at the end of the day you're able to leverage what you've done
versus what you either have or haven't succeeded at, if you will—
or whether you will or won't, because time stays for no man. It merely marks his footprints
as he lopes intelligently from dune to dune looking, gazing, via the minimal shade afforded
by an extended salute in which the hand becomes a fleshy awning
or hood, the gaze a pair of Mini Maglites glowering into dusky realms.
Ode To The Sun
"The sun's a dreaded marksman
Perched way up in the clouds.
His bolts are purest fire;
His call is never loud.
"He sizzles in the tropics
Like some ungrateful bird
Whose wings are made of fire
And name's a single word:
"Sun, when will you stop shining
So terrifyingly,
Stop shooting down those arrows
Upon your earthbound prey?"
—Aaron Belz
Copyright © 2016 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture magazine. Click here for reprint information on Books & Culture.
