Friday, June 21, 2019

The Binding of the Years

The creek was dark
beneath the canopy of trees
save for one shaft of sun
that lit the stream there like gold

I could see 
on the bottom of the creek
a crawdad, scuttling to safety

the crawdad hid beneath 
an ancient sheet of paper
heavy with age and 
weathered with water

There was writing 
on the old paper,
a message that 
was being erased 
by the steady flow

The writing was in Spanish
and the remaining words
that I could read said

...El sol, la luna y las estrellas, 
la atadura de los años,
esto nos mantendrá firmes...

...which I translated to say

...the Sun, the moon and the stars,
the binding of the years,
these are what hold us steady...

It is my estimation
that this was from a 
diary of a wanderer,
a sojourner and stranger
holding steady to the path in front of her,
the stream, rolling alongside her,
and the stars above her

I believe that she 
was speaking of a 
promised land
one better than older
promised lands
and more sure.

I added my own words to the water
and walked on.

1 comment:

Feodor said...

Dan, going on vacation tomorrow for a couple of weeks. Thank you so much for your forebearance in letting me occupy your comments section to the extent that I have. I appreciate our common understanding that there is a sickness in white America and that Marshal and Craig - and Stan and other fake Christians - are among the worst patients we know. I very much appreciate your giving me room to respond to them and join with you in representing reason against broken thinking; mature Christian faith in a living Christ against the brutal death-dealing dogma of book worship; and a belief that making efforts to enlarge ourselves in a common humanity will always increase thinking and the vision of the glory of God.

In the last year of exchanges we have witnessed Marshal and Craig fail to present a comprehension of human life that makes any sense. We have seen how they only have the capacity to hold on to one radical belief in sacrosanct organisms of human development at the cost of writing off the human rights of living women and caged children.

Marshal loves Trump's brutality. Craig says nothing, objecting only to private sins not crimes against humanity.

Treating sickness always takes labor. And the sickness Marshal and Craig have is no different. Their sickness is sickening, tiring, depressing, because it is so irrational and so senseless. Their sickness is so horrifying beause they claim that God is the author of it. I intend to stay away for the next two weeks. Got to get away from foul, corrupt people every so often, even if it's just social media.

Thanks again for your patience, good brother, over these last many months.