Steve GannFrom Baghdad to Babylon -- Where Lies the Difference?
November 28th 2006 13:19
By the Still Waters of Babylon
Remember the call of your fathers, the voices spoke
To her trying to stem her heartache and her loss.
She turned for a moment from the wall, the place
Of so many remembered meetings, the cool stone
Now a resting place in the heat of midday for her head.
She felt laden with the cares of her children
The stillness of the afternoon broken for a moment
By the cries of the raven.
Can this be all? She thought as she watched the pattern
Of the sun reflected for a moment on the watery surface,
The still measure of her existence and in the distance
The reflected pattern of the sky.
The messenger had departed many hours since, but she
Could not bring herself to take the future path
Where she must venture forward once more a solitary
Carer who must carry the burdens of her being
And live for her children and others of their kin.
They who did not share this understanding,
Did not yet know the cruel blow that distant death
Would bring to make their pain and suffering
To devastate their house so full of desolation
That no beauty nor sounds of gladness could relieve.
No tears graced her face carved in deadly silence
No sound escaped her, the hidden pain wrapped
In sullen depths of passion that no earthly source
Could dull to tearing cruelty
That she could recognise and bear.
Instead, without awareness, she let her feet take her
Where they willed across the bridge into the markets
Where the daily bustle of commerce carried her along.
Until at last, on the outskirts of the city
She was overtaken by exhaustion and stumbled to her knees.
Like a cloak her misery surrounded her and she was about
To flee panicked into the low hills in the distant blue.
But again the voices reached her, not with calm or easy answers
But with a path that she could follow back to life
Back to her pain filled tomorrows that for now seemed
Hopeless with no brighter path to fill.
She resisted for a moment, rebellious at such cold promises
Until the faces of her children conjured other visions
For the future that she alone would see.
So like Ruth, she caught up her sorrows and pressed them
To her breast, lamenting as she homewards journeyed
To what had been 'til now, her place of quiet rest.
2/9/01
Remember the call of your fathers, the voices spoke
To her trying to stem her heartache and her loss.
She turned for a moment from the wall, the place
Of so many remembered meetings, the cool stone
Now a resting place in the heat of midday for her head.
She felt laden with the cares of her children
The stillness of the afternoon broken for a moment
By the cries of the raven.
Can this be all? She thought as she watched the pattern
Of the sun reflected for a moment on the watery surface,
The reflected pattern of the sky.
The messenger had departed many hours since, but she
Could not bring herself to take the future path
Where she must venture forward once more a solitary
Carer who must carry the burdens of her being
And live for her children and others of their kin.
They who did not share this understanding,
Did not yet know the cruel blow that distant death
Would bring to make their pain and suffering
To devastate their house so full of desolation
That no beauty nor sounds of gladness could relieve.
No tears graced her face carved in deadly silence
No sound escaped her, the hidden pain wrapped
In sullen depths of passion that no earthly source
Could dull to tearing cruelty
That she could recognise and bear.
Instead, without awareness, she let her feet take her
Where they willed across the bridge into the markets
Where the daily bustle of commerce carried her along.
Until at last, on the outskirts of the city
She was overtaken by exhaustion and stumbled to her knees.
Like a cloak her misery surrounded her and she was about
But again the voices reached her, not with calm or easy answers
But with a path that she could follow back to life
Back to her pain filled tomorrows that for now seemed
Hopeless with no brighter path to fill.
She resisted for a moment, rebellious at such cold promises
Until the faces of her children conjured other visions
For the future that she alone would see.
So like Ruth, she caught up her sorrows and pressed them
To her breast, lamenting as she homewards journeyed
To what had been 'til now, her place of quiet rest.
2/9/01
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