“Be prepared for The Stranger
who knows how to ask questions,” he said.
“Be prepared for The Stranger coming from Edom,
traveling in the greatness of his strength.”
And I remembered stories
of a man loping down the road
on bare feet,
girded by a towel,
wearing a crown–
a man who could unravel my soul
like a thread
and swing me into the ocean of stars.
They say that conversation always brewed
like a storm around his head.
They say he came to climb a tree
and die with splinters in his hands.
“I perceive approaching
The Rock. The Watcher. The Stranger,” he said.
Then he smiled in that charged way of his
and I was afraid
and confused, and
a little indecisive,
like a mouse in an open field
when a shadow passes overhead.
I started
scurrying this way
and that
while the sound of my little heart
beating,
beating,
filled the sky.
And then he stood there–
The Stranger.
Rollicking.
O, my God!
He reached down,
plucked me by the tail,
and flung me into the ocean of stars.
–inspired by T.S. Eliot’s “Choruses From The Rock” and by Isaiah 40
