Proper 14 Year Two, Wednesday

[Judges 13:15-24]
[Acts 6:1-15]
[John 4:1-26]

TEACHER, GIVE US A WORD

I pulled a sheet of paper from my mouth.
I read it out loud: It had exquisite sound,
sumptuous consonance, just a touch of rhyme
(but nothing too garish) and a rocking rhythm
so lovely that it didn't need a reason.
I pulled another paper from my lips.
It read: "It is not right that we should neglect
the word of God in order to wait on tables."
It seemed to be entirely reasonable.
I spoke another page, and then another,
as if to bury the Word under a mound
of my own clever words, or have God bound
within a book, make a tomb of a tome.
I have stood and argued by the well
about the proper place for sacrifice
as Jesus tried to offer living water.
I stopped to catch my breath, and was surprised
that he was silent. I opened my book
to find the words had vanished. Then I took
the empty thing and threw it on the fire.
And look! As the sparks kicked higher and higher,
angels rose to heaven on the smoke.


Today's readings made me think of this older poem of mine:

THE NECCESARY CHATTER OF THE WORLD

Is talk something we "need," the way we need
Food or love or internet access?
Yet monks go years without saying a word...

Today's a "quiet day" at Seabury,
Which means that we are not supposed to talk
When we are in the halls, refectory,
Or any other common space today.
At lunch, I sit and pick at my salad
(I'm trying to lose weight, or change my life
In a way vaguely linked to how I look,
Or how I live, or how I treat myself...)
And look around at all my fellow students.
Most of them seem inward-turned today,
Not looking at each other, eyes downcast
As if to say, "If I can't speak to you,
We might as well be in two different rooms."
What terrifying emptiness is formed
Around us when sensations can't be named:
A siren bays somewhere not far away
And I can't lock it safely down with words--
As if the world might sink its million teeth,
From millions of its tiny mouths, in us
Without the safety of restraining talk--
What does it "mean," when in a lingual void,
A rabbit runs across the campus Garth?
A tree falls in the woods, and no one speaks.
So did it make a sound? What would they mean,
Sound, tree, woods, without the words?
And by the time I get back to my room
I'm feeling nervy as Schroedinger's cat,
Tense with the unnamed's breath upon my neck,
And sit down by the screen to write a bit--
To push the nothing back as by a charm,
As bonfires in the woods drive back the dark--
A stream of language, babbling like the sea--
The neccesary chatter of the world.