Stones in the Stream

Ed's Pacht's second response to the Poetry Challenge is similar in content to this first poem (here), but flavored differently.

Stones in the Stream
by Ed Pacht

The smooth speckled stones, straggling or stranded
in the rapid-running washing of the stream,
the liquid jiggler with its song like a chorus of wind chimes,
the gentle persuasion of musical renderings
that bring to life the presence of the place,
the towering presence of the harmony
of God and all the beauty He has made,
and stir in simple hearts a longing
for what they do not know they need.

And to this presence sometimes comes a seeker,
who has been laboring longer than he can endure,
whose thirsty spirit, drier now than death,
contains no promise but a forecast of disaster,
a seeming slide toward those forbidden portals,
a destruction just as sure as broken eggs,
an aching like a painful festering splinter, caring for none, and slowly falling away, with his fists a-beating on those portals,
seeking what he cannot know.

The smooth speckled stones washed in the stream,
the gentle persuasion of musical renderings,
the promise of peace he has not known,
the harmony of the Presence of that place,
the touch of nail-scarred loving hands.
Freedom.