Water

Now by the ground I’ve left the Earth, the hill it raises my steps.
Often lost but always found, again, my path seems to have no end.
And yet, rising change within, not felt since I began but growing more as I ascend, I know a time of change has finally come.

Long and long I’ve walked along the dust and rock where once life flowed.
Deep and clear, our gift taken for granted, a trade for strife though
the bargain made on our behalf before we ever planted
the first tree and claimed a home prepared before we had a name.

A strife, it came at last, though how we broke the bargain no one knew
and so it fell to me to ask by casted lot, I drew
the colored stone and left our home to follow back the empty bed,
to clear the river’s head by might or beg the bargain be remade anew.

And now an end is in my path if intuition plays me fair
though whether blessing, woe, or wrath, the answer calls down
from this stair above my head, above my heart.
So high it lay above the dreams I had of night, restless sleep by
kindled flickering light, the voidbound stars last seen before the guard
of waking thought retreats and princes idly trespass ’round
the mossy stones of gates no longer shut.

But dreaming done, I walk above the cloud’s high province,
the shrouded hill now mountain bold, higher still the pathway winds. Its stones worn smooth by traveler, wind, and times. I know not how this fairway made, for seventy years the price I paid to step where I now go.

To my left a gorge where once a mighty water poured down,
now all of rock and root and brown
stone cleft by ancient river,
whose wonder lingers now in a memory alone.

To my right a tangled wood, though sloping fast, flies far below
my line of sight to make appear the plains beyond
and farther still the lines of all that mankind treads.

To my back, the road I came, now no longer may I pass.
That way is closed though all my might be pressed toward the smallest step.
Up, ahead, the only way I’ve ever went for these long years spent
along the labor I was chosen for.

And now dreamt vision proven true,
I hear with feet a rumbling sound
so low and deep it makes the ground
an instrument to pass along the faintly steady-growing song.

Quickened wonder, quickened gait, the floor now singing choral bass
I turn the bend too fast, too late to turn away from terror’s sight.
My swooning eyes, my bended mind! Why e’er did I leave
my hearth behind to labor in the task assigned to me alone, to pass or die?

The light it fades, the music mutes, to hands and knees I fall and seek a refuge from my thoughts and fears. Oblivion refused my pleas and left me with that stunning view, my only choice to look upon what seemed my doom: a mighty beast, great ogre of the mountain gloom.

“Pay me not thy homage,” boomed a voice like whirling beams,
“for thy debtor requires all your stores. Rise, oh man, for I see thy need.”

Body battered by mere words, flenching did I slowly climb
to feet, unsteady, yet enough to meet the visage of that mighty one.

Now my faculties returned enough to see with reason, one commanding,
neither beast nor ogre standing there, but fearsome even still.
A man whose face shone buffered light, his sandal
burned the ground and terror was his robe.
With a thousand unseen eyes he saw, his belt a wheel of iron,
his sword a ringing shaft of light and marble hilt.
Bronze bracer gleaming, crook of myrtlewood gilt,
and silver rings mailed ’round his thigh.

“Oh ancient man of old,” I plead as mania retreated,
“I come to ask why you’ve dealt dire ending to my kin and town.
For, I see your hand upon the wall,” I said, growing bold,
“and now know who stopped the water, leaving us to drink the dust.”

Though stretched high up the mountain stone beyond my reach, as I drew near
I watched the slowly weeping tear creep slowly ’round the Atan’s hand
and knew the fount was kept behind and held and ransom from the land.
“What do you ask?” I pleaded then,
“What recompense might I produce to gain your mercy,
to covenant a truce by which you stand aside
and let the water’s tide flow freely from this furthest fount?”

His gaze regarded me unblinking,
silent, still, perhaps my choice of boldness at the cost of thinking might have opened floods not earlier considered, but his
anger did not ripen and the harvest of my life was not yet started here.

“Twice before I’ve placed my hand here o’er this crack, and
stopped the waters from the land, to hold it back.” he said in voice like ocean song. “Once for rest in ancient day, and once for promise never ending,
thus by word alone have I been guardian here so long.”

Looking past my meager frame, his eyes unfocused
as he trod the only place left for his travels–
memory of near infinite life, recalling his Lord’s just command.

“And once before, I pulled away, to let the eager waters race
and wash the dirt to clean the land, and pay the wages that were due.”

“But behold! Upon the wave, an ark of mercy filled with life and
holiness, to save the work of He who charged me thus.
To cover o’er His enemies, again the serpent can’t but fail
and though the ones He loved did live and though they’re sIll behind the veil, the one true Ark sIll yet to come has claimed them even now.”

“I speak not of those ancient days,” I told his smiling, radiant face,
“but of the water needed now by those below. Unstop the ways
for fruit born in season, for ox and lamb, allow for reason,
surely our stream warrants not such government.”

“Oh man of brothers, seed of fertile earth! Son of Adam ransomed!
The image of Glory reveals thy worth, yet nearly blind thy sight.
This tireless hand of mine holds not the waters from thy people, but
binds them one and all to their borders–sea, stream, and fall.”

I heard the truth in pure words spoken, yet
could not grasp the meaning there upon that
lonely, dusted stair, and he seeing all my
thoughts before I knew them, kindly came
the remedy of his song.

“The stream thou seekest by mistake is gone
now here, but not there then. Thy people
drank for all their days, long past thy leaving
home and mortal coil,” his melody rolled down to mountain’s feet.

“The path for thee is further up, further in; the
stream thou followed forty years, it does not
empty, does not fail to clean those sins
of all annexed by current strong.”

Now brighter grow my oracle, somehow I know
I’ve tarried overlong here, suffering awe, fear,
and song here, turning ’round toward the
way, his parting words lead me hence.

“Go, go oh son, oh my Judge, along the banks
of crystal river, of which thou drank before
the groaning of the world ceased. For, by
seal of unbreaking bow my, hand has held
the old waters, so too the New Waters flow
from God’s hands by eternal seal of the nail.”

And so I went, along the stream unto the sea.