Places 33: On the Border

On the Border
Between Israel and Syria, looking toward Damascus

 

I was forever changed.
A humility of purpose,
Love’s proprietary gain,
remained.

Lying there, an unclean woman,
face down upon the land,
my fingers stroking dust,
rubbing such fine grains of earth—
they felt like silk,
slipping against my thumb,
sliding between my fingers.

Hidden in black dust and dirt
a love I couldn’t understand
began its course.

Such tiny bits of grit and sand,
(Ah, they were so fine).

Lying there, in the dust
love warmed my blood,
moved through my veins,
captured every doubting cell
within my doubting brain.

God truly loved the actual land
every bit of grit,
all its dust, its soil, its sand.

Did I start to see it,
face down there, in the dust,
or did my eyes grow open
when I finally stood up
and looked across this no-man’s-land
to raise my sight from Israel’s stand?

High above, in flowing white,
With gold trimmed robes,
Huge angels waited,
Directed, not by man,
Poised and still,
Against a veil of Heaven blue,
Each held one end of an open scroll.
What it said, I do not know.

Like two inviolate stars,
they stayed, un-moved.
Did they notice me?
And marvel at the turbulent coursings—
Life through dusts of earth?