The infantile babbling of a personal stream can hardly be heard behind a single rise, but sitting waterside with toes cooling deliciously, who can remember hearing anything else? Easy joy bubbles out of the throats of boys and girls, sisters and brothers, fellow adventurers who hazard some steps beyond the yard. This was the land that had been promised to some distant fathers; you were that chosen people; rest comes easy to the beloved. Follow the creek until it is no longer yours, where course gives way to marsh, where young people run up a gentle slope of tall grasses, errant prickly thistles, and sunshine. Grow, grow in the goodness of a world made for you. Plant your gardens and build your forts and establish your domain, for whatever you can lay your hands on is yours.
But know a creature lingers
unseen behind the trees
slithering under the stones
close and prowling in the weeds.
You might suppose
that youthful hearts
and a father’s strong arm
would keep you from harm.
But eternal fidelity
sees beyond your years
and upholds righteousness
and instructs your peers.
The senile ravings of a weathered mountain wracked with storm winds pound on like deep waters over the senses of a grown man who blindly grasps for purchase on his crumbling edifice. As blast turns to gust back to breeze, the whimpering cries of the deserving echo up from cracks in the rock. In deep caves, you and your people have hidden what wants hiding in the face of the fiery gaze of the midday sun. Kept in your desperate keeps are the last and dismal hopes of averting judgment. Your heart gives way to the rising fear of a forbearance that can hold no longer. The fear drives you below, and as you lower yourself under deficient cover, a woman passes and rises into the shine of day, bearing the easy yoke of familiarity.
Your father commended
her to your faithfulness.
You defied his dying wish,
instead succumbing to your mess.
A humble reverence
guides her quietly skyward.
The dread that now condemns you
is the fit fear that saw her through.
She laughs in the dark face
of any uncertain future
for she knows who guides her step
and the promise that is hers.
Please, son, do not squander any longer the blessing of extraordinary favor. It is a free and undeserved gift, but one that comes with such expectation. You have been given a name, and the name demands the highest honors, which it will surely exact, for your benefit or to your shame. For a time, you might slothfully hoard the bounty of your inheritance, but know that liberal benevolence and conservative perseverance, those gifts you were promised, are the foundation of a sure throne. Neglect the alluring perfumes of she who whispers in the street and attend instead to the industry of she who boasts at the gate of her fear for your Lord. With her you will find a beginning.