by Vikki Willams
A:
Have you ever looked at water?
Have you ever looked at glass?
Have you wondered if you ought to
stand and wait the storm to pass?
B:
Have you seen a faded red rose?
Have you seen when summer’s passed?
Have you wondered at the day’s close
Why the time should even last?
C:
Have you ever felt the ice-wind?
Have you ever felt the fire?
Have you ever had your arm pinned
‘Twixt the blizzard and the pyre?
D:
Have you laughed among the happy?
Have you laughed among the lost?
Have you felt the current lapping
'Round your ankles for the cost?
E:
Have you ever cursed the sunshine?
Have you screamed into the rain?
Have you crossed a bloody fault-line
just to staunch a spreading stain?
F:
Have you learned an invocation?
Have you learned to read some Psalms?
Have you pled for our salvation
Holding outstretched, empty palms?
F’:
You have known the disappointment.
You have known the state of shock.
Can you keep your next appointment
If you cannot use the clock?
E’:
Have you tasted of the honey?
Have you eaten of the pods?
Have your hunger and your thirsting
Brought you back from other gods?
D’:
Have you wept among the lonely?
Have you wept among the weak?
Have you wandered looking only
For the blessing that you seek?
C':
Have you ever felt the wind's tail?
Have you felt the winter's snows?
Have you ever seen a child fail,
and then wonder how it grows?
B':
Have you ever watched the sun rise?
Have you watched it as it set?
Have you wondered when the lark cries
Why your need to rest is met?
A':
Have you looked upon the ocean?
Have you looked upon the shore?
Let us journey up the mountain
Though our feet be scarred and sore.
A note from Vikki: "Have you ever looked at water?" is an intense poem about beauty, loss, the yearning for redemption, and the not-so-easy path to capture it. All this is fitted into a roughly chiastic structure. (That is, when verses are in the sequence A, B, C, C', B', A', the verses A and A', etc. form a pair.)
