Within this hour I wish to stay
For longer than an hour lasts.
But here, it seems, my hope’s mistaken,
For quickly, every minute casts
Its shadow, as the next is shaken
To come alive and pass my eye.
So time flows on and drifts away
As you and I bloom brief beneath the sky.
Here is the second in a series of short, eight-line poems. This one focuses on the ephemeral nature of time, and the fact that each of us only appears in this world for a relatively short time.
Clouds beneath moon and starlight
Slide slowly over the Earth,
Searching for barren pasture
Where rain would have greatest worth,
But they do not choose the chapter
When water from them shall fall.
So some receive more than is needed
While others’ storms are small.
After last week's long poem, I thought I'd start sharing a series of short, eight-line poems. This first one feels like a good follow-up after last week's themes related to the story of Job. It talks about the randomness of nature, and the fact that rain does not always fall in the places that need it most - through no fault of the people living there.
There was a time, I remember well,
When my footsteps fell on a busy street,
And every soul I’d meet would swell
To tell of all my righteousness.
And in that time, perhaps with pride,
I’d lift my stride to expand my breath
And defeat the depths of death, which slide
Denied across my consciousness.
Then came the time that swung me low
And disturbed the flow of life.
It brought unlooked-for strife, like snow
That blows through summer’s wilderness.
The cold-toned chime my fortune struck
And shattered luck I’d kept so long.
I lost it all. What wrong had snuck
To pluck away my righteousness?
At least some crime, my friends had thought,
Must bring such fraught impediments,
But all the arguments they brought
Did naught but show their callousness.
I, in my time, felt justified
With words applied to counter what
Was said in every rut they tried,
Dividing them from truthfulness.
But in each dime they deigned to share,
A penny, fair with truth, did lie
And I could not deny that there
Was snared my wary pridefulness.
Thus, through the climb of our debate
I came to hate their sentences
And scorn the presences that fate
Sent straight toward my afflictedness.
Then, as the clime began to drift,
Began to shift with a stormy surge,
A younger voice emerged to sift
And lift the truth with righteousness.
He seemed to rhyme with what we’d spoke
But brought a stroke of wisdom new
Through awe, which nature’s clues evoke,
Awoken by his youthfulness.
Although his time was short,
His discourse sported hints of gems
Of gold that grew like stems, support
To fortify my humbleness.
Now, all is primed, and comes the storm
That fills its form throughout the sky,
And from some inner eye is borne
A warning through the wilderness.
“What hands could climb to place the stars
Or mold the jars that hold the sea?”
Such hands come not from me, so far
From sparking life from nothingness.
My brief life’s time is scarce a grain
Of sand that strains in endless waves,
Yet still your voice, which gave us rain,
Would deign to meet my lowliness.
And so, my prime response, to kneel
In soft appeal, may make it clear,
Regardless where winds steer my keel,
I’ll feel at home in humbleness.
I’ll try to rhyme with righteousness
As I hope I’ve tried before,
But without self-righteous pridefulness,
For in every way, you’re more.
I find Job to be one of the most interesting books in the Bible. For whatever reason, it just feels different from most everything else. I enjoy reading the debate between Job and his friends, and God's speech at the end is quite a conclusion, even though it may not seem to directly answer the question the other characters are discussing. This poem is written to convey an imagined sense of Job's thoughts, as the whirlwind comes and he hears God's words.
Wouldn’t it be nice
To pause what time is running,
Rewind the moments back a few,
Relive our greatest cunning,
And view with two eyes twice,
More tangible than memories
With nothing there recalled askew,
No misremembered melodies.
Perhaps we’d change a roll of dice
That chanced unluckily before
Or speak the word we’d wished we’d knew,
Which friendship could restore.
Yet in such skill must lie a price
To feel the glow of moments gone:
To stagnate in reliving through
The past, and miss the present dawn.
To spiral in a single slice of momentary gold,
We might mistake what dreams accrue
For those our futures hold.
This poem came out of a passing thought I had, about being able to go back in time and relive certain moments, perhaps changing things to what we think would have been better. Maybe there could be value in this, but there might also be danger - both in changing who we are today in ways we might not expect, and in becoming so entranced with reliving the best of our past that we forget the future.
