Waves of Mountains Born
An ear turned to the murmuring of mountains.
The waves that tumble from mountains Form like lions but strike like fountains, Sound like thunder but feel like sunlight, Look like demons but kiss like clouds might. Meek are the mountain-waves, Though they crash like white-water in shoreline caves. Echo they out to yonder voyaging vessels Grinding on nerves like mortars under pestles. The sailors turn; about-face! Hard on the tiller, their fears take chase, Transforming modest waves, mellifluously murmuring, To fierce tides on sharp stone, malevolently murdering. Fear of God – fear unnamed Forms in the hearts of the shadow-hamed. Driving them away from dangers yet undefined To take shelter in comfort of expedience mined. Thus sailors flee from the echo of a wave’s break, Fishermen panic at the storming of clouds o’er the lake, Hikers repent at the foot a climb too steep, And for good reason; his commandments are hard to keep. The hiker turns from the cliff to begin descent Into comfort; into hell; into a world deeply rent. He fears facing the summit; and hearing his sovereign’s will That loving voice that conjures the petrifying wave still. Might the waves draw naked steel and cleave the unrighteous To that fate of fierce fire which they fear with fervent focus? Know they not the fickle mind of flame? Know they not they flee to fate the same? As Tolkien spoke of doom and cowards sorely unfit: “He who runs from his fear takes only a shortcut to it.” Shadow-hamed, indeed, the fear of God is in need. For it is on the discomfort of selflessness that our souls raveningly feed. Selfish fear flees from mountain-waves a-tumbling. Selfless fear is love which pushes through clouds a-rumbling. To find the patient eyes of God, and hear him speak his mind: “Let go your fear of iniquity, for I have redeemed the eyes of the blind.” “I have cleaned the feet of the cowards that flee; I have healed the shipwrecked sailors, you see? I am stitching fast the world’s deep rent With thread of gold, purest white – and blood of the lamb, spent.” Thus with selfless trembling you divine: The gentle fountain formed of the livid lion, The warm sun you mistook for lightning’s bevel, The kiss of the saviour you believed was a devil. You’ve heard it before, I’m sure: The hammer that strikes the steel to score. The potter that bruises the clay, day after day. The God who sends the wave – that his followers might pray.
