Sheer Bandages: A Fragile Offering: A person should not bury a talent—no matter how small.

By Theresa Rough,

Sheer Bandages: A Fragile Offering contains the literary genres of free verse poetry, haiku, anthropomorphic ballads, and wisdom sayings. The collection is replete with recurring images (e.g., the poet as moth, shadows, the Potter’s wheel of God, death, the tree, the Lord’s nonverbal messages through nature, and His verbal messages through the Scriptures). 

Many of the works are presented in a moving or twirling motion. The sheer bandage image itself (around and around) wraps its way throughout the entire book, giving an ethereal sense of orbits and life’s seasons.

And as the bandage unwraps, out flow the fragile offerings—the poems and wisdom.

Every work was wrought through the thorn of brokenness, yet the poems are not dark. Rather, they flash illumination as if a fresh candle were just lit.

Sheer Bandages: A Fragile Offering is minimalist, free of anything esoteric.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 17, 2024
• ISBN: 9798888327180

Book preview

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Poem Called Acoustics

1. A Paper Cut

2. Bits of Broken-Looking Glass

3. The Poet

4. The Poem

5. The Fifth Commandment

6. Sharp Wind

7. Trench Flower

8. Some a Hundredfold

9. Full Circle

10. The Dance

11. Each Rainbow

12. Crucible

13. Eclipse to Eclipse

14. A Pirouette

15. Alms

16. The Windows

17. Her Talent

18. Mom Died

19. Rolls-Royce

20. Quantity is not quality any more than

21. A Proverb takes insight from wisdom and foolishness

22. The Call

23. Beauty

24. Voice

25. Caught

26. Courage

27. Content

28. A Covering

29. Deny Self

30. Haiku

31. Haiku

32. Morphed

33. Haiku

34. A Knotted Form

35. The Harp

36. Life’s Pilgrimage is not measured in miles or in four-inch smiles.

37. The Blanket

38. A Fire in My Bones

39. Joy and Woe

40. Keeping the Vision Alive

41. Faith in the Promises of God

42. Haiku

43. One of the Wonders

44. Etch-o-Sketch

45. The Cure All

46. Ears

47. The Orbit of a Wave curling in on itself—the knot unties for a moment.

48. Conscience

49. Sensitive

50. Temperance

51. Staged

52. The Sun Stoops to be swallowed by our narrow

53. First the Seed

54. My Ceiling

55. Yank Out the Decay

56. To Find Him Vast

57. The Lighthouse

58. Wisdom Appears and disappears before i can taint it as my own.

59. Sharing

60. Two Nests

61. A Thimble

62. Beauty tends to shut my mouth

63. The Loss

64. Revival

65. Paint Remover

66. Braille

67. Eleven Minutes

68. A Sonogram

69. Charity

70. Words Without Anchor lack wisdom—

71. Shipwrecked

72. Fair-Weather Friends

73. Touché

74. Friends

75. A Selfie widens your smile

76. A Good Liar

77. A Future

78. Nature’s Mirror

79. To Un-inspire is like poking holes in a tire

80. Decisions

81. A Friend in Jesus

82. Vespers

83. A Bird never sang the wrong song.

84. Blessed Assurance

85. Countenance

86. Blessed

87. A Difficult Thing

88. Hardened

89. Havahart Traps

90. In War the wind collides against it.

91. There Is War

92. Gentle Comes

93. Artless War

94. The Rapture

95. Minimalism

96. Sheer Bandages

97. A Flame Divided

98. The Tongues of Innocence

99. Punishing Yourself

100. Two-Faced

101. 1753: Is It Much Different Today?

102. Peddler

103. Song of War

104. Ship of Fools

105. He Became Poor

106. Invasive Intruders

107. The Sickle

108. So Be It

109. A True Saying

110. Ownership

111. Deletes

112. 4th of July

113. Heavy Like a Phoenix

114. Persecuted

115. I Am Broken

116. Contrite

117. Christianity is not a label—it is a seal.

118. In Christ

119. Point-Blank

120. An Instrument

121. Skimming Life

122. Canonized Dross

123. Two Cents

124. We Laugh

125. I Am Not a Wheelbarrow

126. A Lullaby

127. Poetic Tension

128. Transcending Time

129. God’s Grandeur

130. The Ice Ghost

131. A Step Back

132. Perfect Love is without blemish

133. Where Love Is Found after Searching Everywhere

134. I Heard the Cardinal

135. His Faith

136. Growing Close

137. A Covering

138. Joy and Woe

139. Do Not Mourn

140. Memory Is a Poor Guide

141. Two Dying Men

142. A Poet’s Pain

143. Primal Box

144. Dream

145. Innocent Animals

146. Shush, I Am Praying

147. Ecstasy Wanes

148. Psalm 151

149. Purple

150. Narrow is the way to intensity.

151. Opinion should be broached

152. A Divine Glimpse

153. The Ocean and the Moon

154. Cloudy Nights and Privacy

155. Fingerprint

156. The Moon’s Lesson

157. A Poem Should

158. A Blind Guide

159. Haiku

160. The Thorn

161. The Loss of a Literary Friend

162. The Loss of a Friend

163. Good Friends

164. Ode to Writing

165. The Bible

166. Grafting Is of God

167. Cleated Boot

168. Thorns can give birth to either humility or hell.

169. Candle at the Window

170. Ladder to God

171. A Crowded Poem

172. Time is Endless Yet the Rush

173. Communion

174. Holy Ground

175. Complaining is a thorn but pride is a whole garden full.

176. My Thorn keeps people from picking me.

177. I Am Not Yet David

178. Standing

179. Healing Process

180. I Could Not Reach the Lily

181. Dropping Everything

182. A String of Pearls

183. Count on God

184. Fool Circle

185. Metaphor

186. Rahab’s Cord

187. Broken Things

188. Beauty in the Flaws

189. Inner Tubing

190. Ulysses

191. Numb to the Sting

192. Sandcastle

193. The Love of a Mother

194. Measure of Faith

195. My Wing

196. God’s Cantor

197. Selfless Not Yet

198. Seize the Moment for God’s Sake

199. On Sand

200. Fruit Fly

201. The Way of Success

202. Worship

203. Balanced Energy No Pull

204. Censer Holders

205. Omniscient

206. I Surrender

207. The Draft Was Very Cold

208. Walk by Faith

209. The Tempest

210. A Good Sermon

211. Wall

212. Memory Caught Decaying

213. Vietnam War

214. Agape

215. Balanced

216. The Damaged One

217. Virtuous

218. The Birch

219. Potter’s Wheel

220. Age 50

221. Age 30

222. Age 20

223. Faith Quivers

224. Noble Silence

225. Football

226. The God Who Sees You

227. The Wind’s Message

228. A Fence

229. The Winter Garden

230. Writing a Collection of Poetry

231. Don’t Give Up

232. Hurry Buy

233. WWJD?

234. Broken

235. Haiku

236. Incubate Ice

237. Hope

238. Finally Spring

239. Sacred Dance

240.