The Water Who Thirsted

Posted on September 5, 2022 by randamir

Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”
John 4:6-7

You may listen to me read the poem via the player below.

Thirsty, the Water asked of the woman
Who came to the well in the day’s heat,
“A drink, please,” though she, a Samaritan,
Not caring if it seemed indiscreet.

“But you have nothing by which I may draw
Water for you. Though it’s clean, still it’s deep.”
He pulled me with questions as if to call
Me out of the depths, rouse me from sleep.

Yet thirsty I was and to Water spoke:
My heart leaked with words, confession poured out;
Faith ebbed and pooled till my suspicion broke
To flood me with joy as love soaked my doubts.

And drinking, I am filled, full as the sea
Because of the water who thirsted for me.

Randall Edwards 2022
Artwork: James Tissot (French, 1836-1902). The Woman of Samaria at the Well (La Samaritaine à la fontaine), 1886-1894. Opaque watercolor over graphite on gray wove paper, Image: 10 5/16 x 14 13/16 in. (26.2 x 37.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Purchased by public subscription, 00.159.69 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 00.159.69_PS2.jpg)
#gospelofjohn #thepoetrypub #poetry

Day 4: Transition

Posted on November 27, 2021 by randamir

(transiens) “passing over or away,” present participle of transire “cross over, go over, pass over, hasten over, pass away,” from trans “across, beyond” (see trans-) + ire “to go” (from PIE root *ei- “to go”). Meaning “passing through a place without staying”

I’m catching up a bit on the November Poem a Day Challenge.

“Transition,” to me, does not sound appealing;
It reminds me of friends who have gone or are leaving,
It reminds me too much of the lingering pain
Of those whom I love and am grieving.

Transition has too often been used to describe
My friends who lie in beds hospitalized,
Whom I visit with, counsel, and pray;
But who in the end, transition and die.

“Transition” speaks of a lightness of being
That life is received not grabbed for keeping,
Is held with palms open till it goes away,
Billows in fullness but like a cloud, fleeting.

I long for the Time when transition goes away
And Time says, No hurry. Have a seat. Stay.

© Randall Edwards 2021.

Too Many

Posted on November 17, 2021 by randamir

Day 16’s prompt is Too Many. I play around a bit with the meaning.

Too many”
As in there is “also much”
And sometimes there are also “few”
Of which it might be said there are too.

But who
Could say that there are too many
Things to be thankful for?
Too many blessings you’ve let walk through the door?
Too many people who love you, people galore?
Too many that you couldn’t use more?

You are not alone because there are too,
Many people longing for a place like you,
Too many people living afraid that there are too few
Who have room for another friend and who
Don’t have the faith to stick with it through
Thick and thin and to do so with you.

If you think you’re alone, you are not
Cause I am one and we are two,
And there are many more of us too.

© Randall Edwards 2021.

Pass the Piece Discussion

Posted on November 15, 2021 by randamir

My wife, Jennifer, and I had a lovely discussion with artist Dawn Waters Baker about our Pass the Piece collaborative art project sponsored by Rabbit Room.

Pet Poem: Leviathan

Posted on November 11, 2021 by randamir

The prompt for today’s, November Poem a Day Challenge is “a pet poem.”

I’ve been working through the book of Job, and this passage caught my attention. In the Lord’s final words to Job, the Lord addresses the monsters of the world which Job has faced. These monsters are imagined and embodied in the figures of Behemoth and Leviathan. The Lord shows to Job something of his own purposes for the two. After Eric Ortland’s commentary, Piercing Leviathan, only such a revelation, I think, would warrant Job’s response when he speaks of those things “too wonderful for me, which I did not understand” (Job 42:3).

Job 41:1-5 reads,

“Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook
	or press down his tongue with a cord?
Can you put a rope in his nose
	or pierce his jaw with a hook?
Will he make many pleas to you?
	Will he speak to you soft words?
Will he make a covenant with you
	to take him for your servant forever?
Will you play with him as with a bird,
	or will you put him on a leash for your girls?"

It is a striking picture. The Lord promises to subdue Leviathan and to make him no more harmless than a house pet. And so, Leviathan is the subject of my pet. You may listen to me read the poem via the player below.

A Pet Poem: Leviathan

Tied like bait and fastened to a tree
He descended, cast himself to the depths
Of this world’s chaos and calamity,
Sank ‘neath its waves and breathed his last breath.

Swallowed by the gaping mouth of death, 
In the dark of its belly he lay
Until the barbed hook of justice set
On the morning of the third day.

Holding his rope in the beast's jaw fixed fast,
The one who was drowned, went down, arose!
Bursting death’s belly, the scorned and outcast
Led Leviathan out by the nose.

In our loving, Redeemer’s victory, 
The fears we fear, the terrors and threats
Are of no more concern for you and me
Than a bird a young boy might get.
And Leviathan, that dragon of death,
Is led for your girls on a leash like a pet.

© Randall Edwards 2021.

The artwork is available via Wikimedia Commons which notes that the image is, God fishing Leviathan, using Jesus Christ’s human nature as bait. Jesus is depicted crucified, at the bottom of a w:Jesse Tree. Miniature from Hortus deliciarum. between 1167 and 1185. w:Herrad of Landsberg. I think it’s pretty cool that the metaphor and imagery which I imagined was captured 800 years earlier at least by a 12th Century Abbess. Hope I get to meet her someday.