soundofmanywaters

 Hand Crafted Suppose you took a rest from making tables, apprentice maker, as earlier from worlds; and in that little Sabbath you took wood, whose seed you coded at the roots of time, You parted its smooth grain as once you parted firmaments, yielding to your shaping blade, forming a dove, your fellow before aeons… Suppose you show it to your patient father. It is admired and stroked and put somewhere. Years pass. The family move away. The shop decays and falls. The dove is lost in rubble. States come and go, make love and war, till now Palestinian and Israeli face each other… Suppose a Hebrew shell or Arab rocket blasts the old foundations, scattering their stones… Suppose a child slides a hand into a gap... Suppose she feels smooth beech wood, touches wings...

  Remembrance   So from your high cross did you see afar in the armour, swords,   the boots and horses, the tramp of armies off to another war the flags of battles and the hills of corpses?   So did you hear among our taunts and sneers The echoing centuries of rage and hate? the weeping lovers and the mothers' fears, The curses hurled, the ever hardened heart?   And when they gave you bitter vinegar could you taste upon parched lips the sting of pain? the mad, the violated, those who   bear sorrows drowned by the victors' idiot song?   Finally, when they bashed an iron nail into each hand, and in your side a spear aimed for your life, could your heart still feel Compassion for the ones who slew you there?   An athlete’s sweat, a mother’s pain, are wounds Of love: nothing lives without a sacrifice. Not the bite of nails, it is love that binds Your broken body to this killing place.