They Redrew the Boundaries

They Redrew the Boundaries

(“Native-born Israelites and foreigners are equal before the Lord and are subject to the same decrees. This is a permanent law for you, to be observed from generation to generation.” Numbers 5:5)

They redrew the boundaries and stone-built it higher than
anyone could climb.
They turned their language into a test for allegiance and
turned their ear away from unfamiliar accents.
They acted like the world was a trinket they won
at the county fair midway. They pretended no one
else could play.

The land did not come this way, divided up into uncomfortable
portions of triangles and dust. The skies do not argue over
languages. The sun extends every ray without filtering
for nationality or gender. The moon gently shines on
us all.

Lanterns of suppositions pretend to show the way,
but only hide behind the walls erected like underrated mazes
to analyze those who go astray. We have driven too many
underground. We have complicated the translations of
the simple sounds of equality and freedom.

The answers are easy; it’s the questions that challenge our
very being. We could have lasted longer if we had let
the binds between us be as flexible as time. But our
bipolar world kept demanding that they are not us and
we are not them and all of us are separate like the verses
of a long-forgotten hymn.

We taught it to each other, and as long as we listened carefully,
the tune wound itself in and around us, through us and
outside into the waiting air. We knew, after all, that the
differences we see are just the imagination of games played
with loaded dice. We needed the advice of those
who listened to jazz even when they did not understand it.

Like a Monument

Like a Monument

(“Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.” Philippians 3:7)

The stone jutted from the muddy ground and
stood like a monument to a nameless hero
or
saint,
or trouble,
or oration,
or a quaint way of sizing up the history
of a name nearly forgotten.

You can see the arms from here, pointing
down to shield the graveled feet from
umbrellas of rain that threatened to
drown its memory.

And yet, what is gained by chiseling
every victory in granite,
every loss in craggy rock? Would there be
a directory to tell who had visited and
how long they stayed?

The stone was uncut. That was clear. And so,
changed by perception only,
it could outlast the longest tenure you or I
could remain. The stone was massive.
This was shadow.
And obscured the view of the open meadow
unless you climbed it carefully,
kept your footing,
found your handholds,
and looked toward the west where the
golden-eye of the sky shone in the
late afternoon.

So travelers who stop merely to catch their breath
follow the trough that carries the rain between the hills.
Not looking back, the sun beckons
in pink and gray shadows behind the distant cliffs.