Harvest

For there was a nostalgia in the darkness...

B.H. Fairchild, "A Man in a Machine Shop"

I read these words from Psalm 105, Twenty-first day: Morning Prayer - 

36 He struck down the firstborn of their land,

the firstfruits of all their strength.

I usually read with the grafted-in-eyes of those delivered. But on this day I tried to imagine myself an aged Egyptian father...

~~~

I mumble godless prayers most days - 

Let evening come.  Let evening come.

For only in shadow can I see my son's face,

sunlight thieves my memory.

The horse and rider he hath thrown into the sea;

they were the fortunate fathers.

But me?  I was left to wander grief's shore.

She carried other sons after him,

but he was my strength, my might, my first.

Many years I struck back at the hebrew deity,

cursing a god I could not see.

But no more.  

I am old and tired;

only the sadness remains.

His people are long gone now, 

as are the locusts and the hail.

Still, I continually seek his face.

The great Nile calls my name,

so on feeble legs I slip beneath the surface of time.

My faith?  A millstone

and the undertow of memory.