XL
Don March 26th, 2009
XL
It is not only the Sonnet that has fallen into undeserved disuse in our modern/postmodern obsession with unstructured stream of consciousness; narrative poetry has lost its proper role in a balanced and healthy poetic art too. So we’d better do something about that—and besides, there is a lot of intense biblical study going on that needs to be find its place in my verse to be fully assimilated. Here is one result:
I didn’t expect that day to find him there,
His tired legs stretched out along the ground—
For I’d come late, just to avoid the stares,
The winks, the giggled whispers, and the frowns
Of all the other women of the town.
I didn’t expect t find him there that day,
His weary back propped up against the well
(For the burdens of the whole world seemed to weigh
Upon his mighty shoulders), but we fell
To talking. Who he was, I could not tell.
But he could tell me everything that I
Had ever done. His words into the core
Of my soul struck, and burned, and made me cry.
And I, who’d known so many men before—
Could I dare think that he was something more?
A prophet, surely—you could see he knew
Things that no ordinary man could know.
And when he spoke of God, his words rang true,
As if he knew firsthand that they were so.
“I know Messiah’s coming, and He will show
Us all things when He comes,” I said, and he
Gave me a look that made my heart stand still
In wonder, fear, and awed expectancy
To hear what he would say. His words were chill,
Like a drink from the mountain-high spring that refreshes and fills!
And all that he has said was “I am He.”
I ran back to the town to tell the rest,
“Messiah is at the well! Oh, come and see!”
Some stared at me as if I was possessed
Or the maker (or brunt, perhaps) of some bad jest,
But some there were who did come back with me
To my new master, Jesus, there to be
From all their load of sin and self set free.
Donald T. Williams, PhD
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