AT TIMES
DURING THE HIDDEN YEARS
At times he looked around
the carpenter shop. His eyes
and his thoughts stopped at
hammers, saws and pliers ….
Oh! To be as simple as they are
or to be like a chair or a door
or like that empty cross he saw
on the main road into town
yesterday – that coarse cross –
that that held a screaming man
who died during
the night before.
He wondered if the prophets within
him were saying you’ll have your
turn or sneak out now and go down
the road with your pliers in hand
and unnail this man and set
him free – but there were those two
soldiers guarding and taunting him.
Then – at times - in the market
place he saw life as wheat and
fish hooks - nets and needles –
or he would slip into the synagogue
and if there was nobody there he
would walk up front and unroll
a scroll of Isaiah or Jeremiah and
run his fingers over the words –
until they entered his flesh -
but what really refreshed him
were walks into the hills or down
to the waters of Galilee where
he learned from the birds of the air
and the grapes on the vine and
the house of the father waiting for
his son to come home as he wondered
when it was his time to leave home
and finally head for far countries.
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020
