Once we sang the blustery tunes
of a people bloated on happy promises.
Now, we wait, the words long forgotten
of songs happier still but too faint
to make any difference.
Once we told tales of kings and giants,
maidens and madmen, serpents and swords
walls that crumbled and glories won.
Now, we inhale the night stars of a brittle,
unfamiliar sky into lungs long dry,
heaving for the breath of Heaven.
Once we sang in dulcet tones
with brothers strong, and sisters proud
the songs, full-throated of Yahweh’s arm,
God’s nurturing wings of holy enchantment.
Now, entombed in raspy voices, we sing,
unpracticed in liberating sounds.
We have lost more than a note or two,
suspended as we are
between the music of here and there,
once and again,
Gehenna and Gabriel,
ranting and ruach.
Once we sang a single song.
Now, too many disparate notes vie
for heart and hearth and the demands of presence,
too dim to matter, too far to see, too good to hope for.
Joseph’s bones still cry out from Egypt,
the one with onions, olives and overflowing fullnesses,
not the one the skinny prophets told us to avoid.
Broken reeds too weak to hold up heads
too bored, too forgotten to feel shame.
Even that would be better than
these furrowed grey skies, frowning in apathetic non-wonder.
Lately, we’ve heard rumors of a man
and his pregnant mistress.
Some girl from who knows where
who talks with angels.
Robert Alan Rife
Latest posts by Robert Alan Rife (see all)
- Incoming – God’s Hope in Our Tedium - December 13, 2017
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Really love this, Rob. You have captured the longing. It reminds me of the Song of the Dwarves from The Hobbit.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xnBk3UC3f9U&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DxnBk3UC3f9U
My friend, this poem is simply outstanding… the last stanza hits me in the lungs, wakes me up. I recognize some lines. I need to read this over and over again. Thank you.
Oh wow. Oh wow, did you ever take me back Rob, to the days of black silence when every known bit of God until then was but a whisper….gripping for anything to give hope but alas it could only be through their own vision. God must have had to blind them in order to create a new way to see…to erase all ways to God….for he was preparing the Way. They even had to resort to measures of gossip and yet I hear a faint whisper of hope in even the gossip. Could this lame wandering soul who speaks with angels…be onto something? We all must come to the end of our games in order to see the miraculous. This is a beautiful story, lectio, language and song Rob. I am taken back and yet it is here with me as I too await my Savior to be fully realized in me…and in all of creation. It is indeed an arduous wait and then again, I know part of the waiting is in knowing just how to act. Thank you for bringing this beautiful brush of pen upon a canvas that has painted for us, a living manger scene.
Thanks for your kind words, Val. In an Advent piece I recently added to my innerwoven blog, I mention the following: “When we can no longer take credit for our astonishing acts of faithful waiting, God comes.” We, like Israel, our spiritual forebears in the faith, learn to wait best when we are no longer able to do so. When our bag o’ faith tricks has been all used up, we’ve read all the books, seen all the counsellors, attended all the conferences, cried all the tears, shaken our fists at God or whomever happens to be in front of us, only then does God seem happiest to intervene. It’s never really about the quality of our waiting, although that should always be our goal. It’s about the beauty of God’s character through and after the waiting that really matters. Then, the only appropriate response to the coming of God in Christ back into our broken lives is…Thank You.