soundofmanywaters

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...

    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.

    O merchant, merchant, don't buy love. Your wealth will be utterly scorned.   There was shouting, I remember, jeers, curses, hoarse cries of pain and someone quietly weeping. There was trampling, hooves and boots, great wooden stakes thrust into mud and a spear thrust into softness. There was something streaming softly down, given to the mire around me and there was a terrible darkness.   They say that pearls are born of injuries. I was born of His tears. I wanted to be the salt globe of His grief, souring the earth with bitterness, but He would not. They were tears of love. I am heavy, lustrous with heaven's light.   O merchant, merchant, sell your trash, Give all you have and are.   They say that those who seek fine pearls must dive far beyond light and air where bloody froth can boil your brain to bursting where death swims streamlined round you and there, where freezing weeds clutch every limb ...

    So I planted the garden for you. To guard it, a hedge of sweet myrtle, Within it, lily of the valley, rue and rose To keep me scented of you till you come. All through it of course there must flow A stream of limpid water, Running and singing and shining From a broken jar of clay.   And come at last you do – but why must you Ignore my gate, break down my hedge And trample my flowers? Why could you not linger on the lawn I laid for you, but must go straight ahead (my hedge again!), leaving only an irresistible scent, and the faint echo of a call?   So I followed in your steps, that led After many days to a high rugged hill And a torrent that thundered With the sound of many waters. Far away and small my shattered garden. It seemed you had a wider field to walk, Immersing me into a deeper stream.   And at the summit, you at last, Plainly waiting for me. “Lie down here. Gaze into heaven till it becomes...

    Come beauteous sleep O most reluctant bride Kiss my recurrent mind with bliss of oblivion.   Is there a word for that endless recycling of the same few inanities? Oh whisper the counter-curse!   Oh cut the chain that binds me to the surface in joyless bobbing and jinking: That I may slide into the deep.   Together we will search through swell and ebb and depth for the Peace that holds all wholeness and the Rhythm that is rest.

      Meaning and remeaning with the seasons, This is their art. They follow The Sun swelling in the East, The grub swelling in the ooze. They celebrate in vast carnival Wind, star, storm and bird-wing And the expense of themselves. They plan nothing: bird-blood beats in them: "We are and we are Yours."   But this thin line of words thrown out Along the sky-tide of Your will, Does it hold anything of You? Yet because I must learn You I shall outfly these birds.

    For your heart moved with me… For your feet hurrying after me… For your arms reaching out to me… For your gaze holding on to me… For your delight dancing over me… For your blood shed for me… For your body broken for me… For your life lived in me… For your family all around me… Thank you Lord.