|
|
|
|
||
Beside The Still Waters
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
he leadeth me beside the still waters.
—Psalms 23:2
AND the morning and the evening were
the sixth day; and we saw that it was good;
for we were last to be made, in his own-image,
chosen of heaven, clay-wrought, sinless, God-blest
sons and daughters;
blest for that we saw in our beginning
the Spirit of God move upon the face
of the waters,
lifeblood waters, blood-warm still of his
creationıs heat;
for all he made us after his own kind,
enjoining us, Be fruitful and multiply.
Replenish the earth and subdue it; and have
dominion over the fish of the sea; to you
it shall be for meat.
But for that once we two were led to eat,
beguiled of serpent, fruit from the tree of knowledge,
wherefore went we forth, cast out of Eden,
land of our birth,
over the fruitful waters, east, in reeden
vessels unto the next-blest chosen lands
of earth,
there to dwell amidst a sun-warmed sea,
which, for its teeming waters, life-abound,
we saw that it was good; Eden refound;
heaven on earth; and for our several hands,
forged in the fire of your creationıs art,
were like your Spirit moving everywhere,
thereon did we
then cast our nets upon the face of the waters
that were the sea;
nor did our nets, for its not being loath to part,
chary of its fruit, once come up bare.
Thus generation out of generation,
for all that we were fruitful after our kind,
did we, your children, cast our lot with you,
becoming many;
of many beliefs but of one faith: in you,
O Father in Heaven, One, All-provident, God;
believing thus in you for that you spake
then unto us: The kingdom of heaven is like
unto a net that is cast into the sea,
and gathereth itself of every kind
and any,
and all believeth in me for righteous sake
in heaven shall be.
And always, for your gentle Spiritıs moving
on the waters, did we see the waters were
the moving face of God, were evermore,
despite their sometime vagaries of mood,
benevolent,
and ever kindly. But, O God, one day,
as if they were a wrathful, vengeful god,
and wholly bent
upon avenging all our human wrongs,
and want to vent
their several angers in their sea-wroth way,
they shook themselves, and spake as they were wroth,
and rose up in a mighty wave which like
unto a watery net which compasseth
the earth, did cast itself upon our lands,
as it were Judgment Day,
so overthrowing all our kind it brought
us up, laying affliction upon our loins
as it would say,
Man also knoweth not
his time; as the fishes that are brought
up in an evil net.
And the morning and the evening were
the twenty-sixth day.
And then, O Lord, O God, what then was not
our horror and our suffering and our grief,
our wringing of hands and hearts, our ringing
of voices, and ears,
our tears—
and no relief
to see our human kind, our children, wrought
by you, O God who leadeth us beside—
everywhere floating, bloating upon the waters
as they were so many dead fishes upon the tide,
to rot—
God, not a thresh,
as those brought to deathıs threshold in a net,
the lifeless windows of their severed souls,
Lord, fish-eyed out, cold-blooded, as ones brought up
from the deep,
flesh of our flesh,
but for lifeıs late sweet breath, not theirs as ours
the more to keep.
And for the sun threw down its day-long heat,
corrupting the air to all high heaven around;
yet all your mercy, to the suffering, blind,
as we were hexed.
And the mourning and the grieving is
the next day, and the next, and still the next,
and all the days that follow after their kind.
And now, Lord, in despite the wrathful waters,
like unto the vengeful flood that cast up
Noahıs ark, to seek their own mean level,
have now stilled
themselves, receded from their sea-mad revel,
yet can we not go; yea even now,
for all so killed,
can we not cast ourselves, yet watery eyes,
upon them, in despite their wrath be stilled,
and are, once more, benign and fruitful waters,
all wherein are they which you enjoined of us
to have dominion over, as you spake,
to be for us as meat—yet can we not
for that the fishes of the sea do cast
their nets up on our kind,
and so corrupt your master plan as that
they now shall treat
your word as they shall have dominion over
our dear-loved, lost, God, death-netted kind
as have cast up within their watery net
to be for them as meat.
For which, O God, our shepherd, Lord who leadeth
us beside the waters still, is famine
now upon us as the wolf upon
the lamb,
for that the evil net that was the wrath-
ful waters hath brought all: our boats, our nets
our homes, our lands, our faith, our daily bread,
to damn
our very souls; brought up, God, all, and for
which we grow sick in flesh now, even as we
grow sick in spirit; yet is all our suffering
not done,
the more to come for all now that you leadeth
us beside the standing waters, wherein now
grow vile and unseen spirits breeding,
every one,
disease, affliction, pestilence, and death,
the flying thing that stings us in the night,
the winging virulence.
O God, for all this one dayıs human bleeding;
for all its wrath, now done, can we forget,
for all our sum swept up in one netıs tolls,
for all death tossed
(for all their sins?) our children, banished once more
from the Garden, lost,
their second Eden, second innocence;
but plucked up for the net worth of their souls?
for all your will?
And the grieving and the mourning are
the twenty-sixth day (—O God, can we forget?)
the wrathful waters casting up dead still;
and the still waters poised to cast their net.
|
|
|
|
|
|
||