{"id":4428,"date":"2015-07-30T14:11:28","date_gmt":"2015-07-30T14:11:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unhewnstones.com\/?p=4428"},"modified":"2015-07-30T14:11:28","modified_gmt":"2015-07-30T14:11:28","slug":"we-walked-for-miles-to-see-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/2015\/07\/30\/we-walked-for-miles-to-see-him\/","title":{"rendered":"We walked for miles to see him"},"content":{"rendered":"

I read this poem, or rather story in the form of a poem, in lieu of preaching a sermon on John 6:1\u201315<\/a> at St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church on July 26. I had no great words of wisdom to offer about the story of the loaves and fishes, and, in any case, I’m a writer, not a preacher. <\/i><\/p>\n

\n

We walked for miles to see him, this brand-new prophet,
\npacked a picnic in the dark before dawn:
\nbread, a little stale; some cheese, a skin of wine,
\nmore than we needed. My wife overpacks.
\nOn my back I bore this feast, beyond
\nthe town, the stubbly fields, into the desert\u2014
\nthe wilderness, she driving me before her
\nlike a damned goat to die. We lived, of course,
\nbut that was later. Meantime the sun shone hot
\nand hotter as it climbed, as we climbed
\none hill after another, to see another valley
\nvoid of life and full of rocks, the few
\nbare bushes brown, and worse than none.
\nThe sky became a vast and cloudless fire
\nthat washed the world to white. We kept our eyes
\ndown on the ground. A lonesome vulture fed
\non carrion\u2014though what could have lived here
\nlong enough to die, I could not guess. Perhaps
\nanother prophet, less successful. This one\u2014
\nThis one they all talk about, the one
\nthe fishmonger says is Lord. I’ve heard it before.
\nMy wife, my neighbor, the fishmonger say to me:
\nYou have to hear him preach! But all I could think,
\ntrudging over hill and sun-baked vale:
\nIf this guy is Lord, someone forgot
\nto prepare his way. <\/p>\n

We found him by the crowds
\nthat followed, dogged, in his wake. By twos
\nand threes we overtook them\u2014passed into
\nthe herd’s penumbra. Patient women bearing
\ninfants on their backs or in their bellies.
\nAn old man hobbling barefoot on the stones,
\nhead bent to the road, a staff clenched hard
\nin knobbed and yellowed hands. A sightless woman
\nled by a girl. Two men, young and strong
\nand lean like colts, carrying between them
\na pallet with a small, still form. Then knots
\nand curds. Traveling parties. Accidental
\nfamilies. Men and women too soon old
\nwhose faces mapped their journeys. Bent and broken
\nsandals. Shirt-tails hemmed with filth. Muddy
\nrivulets into a sea, and we
\nwere swept along, until we met the throbbing
\nmultitude. There must have been five thousand.
\nTheir misery and hope washed over us.
\nLaughter from the innocent. The banter
\nof unwashed laborers. The sour smells
\nof bodies. Pungent flesh. I marveled to think
\nhow long they’d walked or waited. Some stood patient.
\nSome napped. Some shouted. Some danced. Some chewed their beards.
\nOthers, pensive, sat and hugged their knees.
\nWide-eyed children streaked with dirt and tears
\nran feral at the margins. A woman raised
\nher arms and eyes to heaven and spewed a rant
\nof high-pitched babble. \u201cSomeone found the wine,\u201d
\nmy wife smirked to her friend, and I admit
\nI joined the laughter. I fear we found no place
\nto have our picnic. <\/p>\n

Yet in this waste an opportune
\ncopse of flowering shrubs had grown, watered
\nby some invisible spring. Crimson petals
\ndecked the ground. A thousand found their shade,
\nbut we preferred the desert to the crowd
\nand stayed aloof. We found a few like us
\nuncomfortably waiting. We sat with them.
\nThe man himself had climbed a hill, and stood
\nsupported by a dozen men who argued
\namong themselves. Only he was silent,
\nwatching the crowd without expression, without
\nmotion. He might have grown there from a seed.
\nI would have thought him nothing special\u2014thin
\nand worn, as dirty as his followers,
\ndistinguished only by his altitude.
\nI wondered whether that were all there was,
\none quiet man and a dozen loud buffoons.
\nThen a wind arose, the first since dawn,
\nand swept their words downhill. \u201cThere are too many,\u201d
\nI heard one say, but the prophet raised a hand
\nto still him. The men fell back. He straightened, then,
\nand spoke to us in low and gentle tones
\nas if to calm a birthing ewe. The breeze
\nbrought his words as whispers to our ears.
\nThe multitude fell silent. Even the children
\nhushed and listened, rapt. \u2014How I wish
\nI could remember what he said! His words
\npierced me at the time, but left no scar.
\nPerhaps they, too, were nothing special. Perhaps
\nit was only my imagination, that when he finished
\nthe burden of the day had lifted, and the sky
\nhad dimmed with hope of evening. \u2014No, not mine
\nalone. The others felt it too. I saw
\nthe old man standing straighter at his stick,
\nheard crying babies salved. The dark-draped pallet
\nlay strangely empty on the ground. Perhaps
\nthey’d tired of carrying it. Perhaps.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m hungry,\u201d
\nmy brother-in-law proclaimed, and so my wife
\ntook out the bread, the wine, the cheese, the fish,
\nsome olives I’d forgotten, laid it all
\non a linen cloth. We made to wash our hands
\nbut I felt the weight of all the averted gazes
\nof the ones with no meals of their own, who were
\ntoo proud to beg, and too polite to stare.
\n\u201cThere are too many.\u201d Unconsciously I echoed
\nthe disciple’s words. Then I saw a boy
\nno more than ten\u2014his clothes too big, and draped
\non a jagged frame, refusing his grandfather’s
\nmeager portion. They argued, gently. \u2014My wife
\noverpacks, as I may have mentioned. We had
\nplenty. I filled a basket\u2014not a large one\u2014
\nand gave it to the boy. \u201cFor both of you.\u201d
\nI could not bear to watch their sacrifice.
\nBut the grateful pair accepted with my gift
\nthe burden of its plenty. \u201cEat,\u201d the old man
\nurged, and the boy ate half a little loaf,
\nthough with an eye on those who now avoided
\nhis. He swallowed, hard. Then suddenly
\nhe bolted with his basket for the hill. The prophet
\nknelt to greet him. The wind had died: I don’t know
\nwhat he said. He kissed the boy, and gave
\nthe food to his befuddled friends. He pointed.
\nThey protested. He pointed once again.
\nObedient, they walked among the crowd,
\ndoling out a meal to a multitude.
\nTheir faces showed how little they had hoped.
\n\u201cThere are too many,\u201d my wife agreed, but now
\nsome others found what they had not meant to share,
\nhalf a loaf, or a puny fish, and gave
\nit to the cause, instead of taking. My sister,
\nalways impulsive, gave away the water
\nfor our washing to a thirsty girl, and I
\nate with unclean hands\u2014though others preferred
\nto fast. I watched that basket make the rounds
\nof half a myriad pilgrims. Every hand
\nreached for its portion. None withdrew empty
\nexcept the few that gave. None went hungry
\nwho wished to eat.<\/p>\n

\u201cA miracle!\u201d some cried.
\nMy brother-in-law demurred. \u201cThere was always plenty,\u201d
\nhe said, his mouth still stuffed with bread. I kept
\nmy counsel. I watched that basket make the rounds
\nof half a myriad pilgrims, and if a dozen
\ndozen could be generous, the rest were
\ngrateful. Far more went out than came back in.
\nFar more hands went empty to that basket
\nthan had a loaf to spare. Some who had
\ntook what they did not need. Yet when that basket
\npassed us at the last, it overflowed
\nwith food. There were too many to be fed,
\nand yet they ate. If there was always plenty,
\nit was not carried there. A miracle?
\nI suppose it must have been. Charity
\nalone could not account for what I saw,
\nthough to believe in charity alone
\nwould be far simpler. I find these miracles
\nhard to swallow. Unsatisfying. They raise
\na thirst for answers that they cannot quench.
\nWhy feed five thousand, and then simply leave\u2014
\nwhen the innocent still suffer, when children starve,
\nwhen five thousand thousand hunger still?
\nWhy them, why then, why there? If there was always
\nplenty, where has it gone? Why do the lame
\nsplash futile in their pool, the blind beg crumbs
\nby the temple gate? Why does my sister’s child
\nlie near death with fever, while an empty pallet
\nlies abandoned on the sand? Why not
\nnow? Where has all the plenty gone?
\nWas this meant to keep us guessing? Hoping
\nfor repeat performances, hanging
\non his every word? \u2014My wife, my neighbor,
\nthe fishmonger say to me: You ask too many
\nquestions. But all I have are questions, and all
\nI can do is ask.<\/p>\n

I said we lived
\nand so we did, though far too often wandering
\nin that desert still\u2014seeking shade,
\nseeking comfort, seeking miracles.
\nMy story cannot cool the sand, nor dim
\nthe sky. They burn the righteous and the rotten
\nall alike. Yet even deserts bloom,
\nfor reasons of their own, and having once
\nfound flowers in this waste, in this waste
\nwe may find flowers yet. Our consolation,
\nmeagerly apportioned as it is:
\nWe will not have to plant them all ourselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read this poem, or rather story in the form of a poem, in lieu of preaching a sermon on John 6:1\u201315 at St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church on July 26. I had no great words of wisdom to offer about the story of the loaves and fishes, and, in any case, I’m a writer, not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[18,23],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8I1ci-19q","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4428"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4428\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}