Letter from Kinlock On Thirst

Dear Chagall;

These tidal flats are anxious, Marc, for one who isendearing, a child as bright as you to lift them to the easel of posterity.  My cove is open-armed, like a singer on astage before his final bow, ready for those rolling waves of love, beating onthe shores of affirmation, up and down the coast of aspiration.  For each man has a canvas in his heartChagall, but only those so favoured by the gods as you may save a day like this with oil and sable, mixed with love and gratitude, that willing hearts like mine might still behold its steady burn through days of rain and cold that seem eternal. 

And those who turn the seagull’s carefree flight to buoyant notes caressed of wood and string, pluck wonder like a harp from the ether of the firmament and hold it for all mankind as a prayer offered to artistry and witnessed by the love of God himself, for God did not make souls in the forge of his ambition for labour or for tedium, but as a constant craving for righteousness and beauty; for what is wine, Chagall, no matter what the vintage, no matter it be red as blood or fragrant as a rose, if not for thirst?  This is what a soul is for, and God’s unyielding gift to man is more than simple beauty.  His greatest of all gifts Chagall, is thirst.

For the tree whose roots reach deep into a watery source will never cast an anxious glance unto the blue horizon for a promissory note of cotton tumbleweeds, rolling in from heaven like a salve to soothe the cracked, hard skin of River Jordan. 

And they who thirst in winter’s bleakest days and yearn for one small ember in the hour of total darkness when the whereabouts of Sol are yet unknown, turn hopefully to those as you, who fill the world with colour and
the air with trills and harmonies, to keep the redbreast sharp and save the brightest rays of warming sunshine for the darkest days of winter, for such as these are mirrors to reflect back unto God those places in our hearts, like this, my lonely cove, before the blossoms yet have shown the blush upon their cheeks onto the morning.

Always, dear Chagall, whenever I see beauty, taste it in the air, feel it in the burn of salty streams along my cheeks, do I sense the love of God imbued unto my breast, for those who paint their small bouquets, raise
their holy voices and share the tender gift of their affection with we who live in poverty of spirit through the night and who daily yearn for beauty and devotion.

Your most affectionate friend in poetry,

Bob  ©

Written May 13th/14th, 2018

Tampa

What drew me to the Holy streets of Tampa
Where perdition and salvation walked together
And shared the darkened corners
Where the wayward lay their heads
When Sol reposes?

Was it winter or recession
That brought the great migration
Providence or desperation
That pulled us to your heart?

Such cruelty I had not yet imagined
Broken men ignited
Midnight torches
Like Nero’s brilliant Christians
Illuminating Roman Streets
With oil and wood and martyrdom
Such benevolence I had not yet imagined
Kindness and charity
That I did report as sacraments

And who were you J.C.
With the initials of a saviour
And the piercing eyes of the devil?
How did you come to purchase
Your accommodation in the cruel cage of Attica?
What was the dark heart of your secret?
Was it murder
Or something more sinister?
For a soul can know worse stain
Than the lethal mark of Cain

We did not steal
But we ate the food you’d stolen
We did not trust you
But we let you watch our backs
For hunger and weakness
Are not so discerning
As abundance and strength

We three
Each in our own way
Sought the eye of the needle
The narrow gate into the Holy City
I dismounted and found it on the street
And beneath the bridges
Where bedrolls and refuse pass for an abode

For the gate was not a golden arch
But a broken road trodden by the unholy
The unclean, the untouchables
You two saw it in the charlatans
The false prophet who offered salvation
For one hundred dollars
But whose pernicious spell dissipated
Like the early morning fog before the sun
At Tampa’s heavy dawn

Tampa, thou Holy City
Tampa, thou son of perdition
Where salvation was offered for a beggar’s alms
And hobos carried scripture

In a little church on Franklin Street
I met one of your prophets
An old street fighter
Whose road to Damascus
Ended in the Holy City
Tampa

He spoke to the killers
He preached to the whores
Reached out the junkies
With dead eyes
And open sores

Gave hope to hopeless
With words like a dart
Past tired ears
To pierce broken hearts

Sons of perdition
Granted exemption
Atonement traded
For priceless redemption

I saw her at the organ
Old and frail
Erect and fearless
Amazing Grace in dignity and stature
A broken man approached her
Dressed in rags
And gaunt and cheerless
Amazing fodder for the coming rapture

Told her a tale of hopelessness
Of solitude and pain
How he’d failed both God and man
How his life was but a stain
Saw the goodness in her eyes
As she took his filthy hands

Raised her voice to heaven
To invoke the Son of Man
The prayer that flowed was canticle
The tears that flowed, a river
The Tongues of Fire above their heads
Gave my soul a shiver

A Pentecostal prayer
In a language known to God
Raised a broken man to ecstasy
Benediction we did laud

Felt His presence in the room
His pureness touch my heart
His Grace like Moses’ staff
Making seas of sorrow part

Heard his voice against the wind
Saw His face against the sun
Felt His sorrow on my cheeks
When the deluge had begun

Knew his Grace as I lay sleeping
Assailable, exposed
Beneath the open sky
In exhaustion’s deep repose

For we had no door to sprinkle
No dispatch in the night
We beseech thee
Pass us over
Until morning’s cherished light

For we too might well have been
Enkindled in the night
Like Nero’s brilliant Christians
To give the pagans light

If thou wouldst seek the Holy City
Seek thee not a gate of gold
For the secret of the portal
Has 2000 years been told

It is a rough-hewn highway
The unholy seek to tread
We must count ourselves among them
See that they are loved and fed

For the architect of Eden
And the One whose gate we seek
Walked with such as these
The lost, the lame, the meek

To reach the Holy City
And that splendid, restive seat
Walk thee not only among them
But anoint their blistered feet

Gather thee the stragglers
From Medusa’s drifting raft
That when He sees thee coming
He might kill the fatted calf  ©

Who But Daniel?

I saw him in a dream
so many years ago
Laughter beyond measure
from that small aortic flow

Even now I cannot help
But smile as I recall
The way I knew his heart
On that rainy night that fall

My voice was in his laughter
And his joy was in my soul
His love was in my breast
Like the bonfire’s warming coals

And when I shook the sun
And bade him wake the lazy day
Still I felt his laughter
And it kept the rain at bay

All day long I wondered
Who the laughing child could be
For I could not place his eyes
But his soul was known to me

And though he never spoke a word
His message was quite plain
That his heart was full of living
And his joy was unrestrained

And who could solve a dream like this
But Daniel in the den?
How does a soul know what to choose
To show the love within?

But that night the rain kept falling
And his laughter left my ears
And it was the darkest evening
Watered with the cruelest tears

For the hopeful place that we had set
For one as yet to come
Would be taken from our table
Before the morning sun

Our tears were like November’s
Darkened days of frozen rain
And the searing air we breathed
Splinters pulled against the grain

And when the skies had cleared
And the tears had drained away
I thought back to the recent dream
I’d had upon that day

A laughing little boy
Without a single word to say
Unbridled in his joy
Like the leaping trout’s ballet

Perhaps he made a shallow dive
Into the living stream
But still he saw the eddies
Where the sleeping rainbows dream

Perhaps he saw the sorrow
That was coming on the dawn
And perhaps he let me know
That the journey was still on

For who would share that dream
But my Daniel in the den?
And who knows what a soul might choose
To show the love within?  ©

Written
May 13th and 14th, 2016