The Watchman’s Prayer

-

 The Watchman’s Prayer


The watchman's thoughts, up on the wall, 

Battles? Conquest?  Kingdom’s fall?

No, just that this dark watch would end, 

and homeward safe to hearth, to friends: 

His simple cares.


As slow the night watch crawls toward dawn, 

he spots a doe who with her fawn.

from darkened woods to greener hills,

risk new grass, and warm his chill

in too-still air.


Is he noble, braving cold

if all he prays is night’s patrol

would come back safely, friends in line, 

swords still clean, none left behind?

This watchman’s prayer


Please set, blood moon, where arrows fly.

Be still, shrill horns and battle cries

Pray, be fevered, dark kings and crowns

Heed your augurs, “fleets will drown”

           Furl your sails


He braids in starlight, three-strand cords,

weaves a promise from his Lord 

His heart beats “peace” on those ramparts.

Sleep sound and know that this watchman’s heart. 

guards dawn so fair.     


Steve Brown

3/15/23

of Isaiah 62.6

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

זכרונה לברכה

-
Image
On this day, June 24, 2021, under a cloudless still sky and a rising full moon, Linda gently breathed her last and was gathered to her people and to the presence of God whom she steadfastly loved and was fascinated by.   She was surrounded by her children and myself.  We were in her room all day, laughing and crying, searching in vain through hundreds of pictures for one of just her, not gathered with family, friends and most especially, her gorgeous grandchildren.    We couldn’t find a single one.   She never posed, not for a photograph and not in life.   So I picked just one with Josh, and no one will feel left out.   She was beautiful, charming and brilliant, a summa cum laude in her double majors of mathematics and early childhood development, but all she wanted was to teach children to read, have her own school and a family to pass on all that was good.  So she did.     She beat her diagnosis by a long shot, but heaven mus...
Read more

The Narrow Path

-
Image
  Gustave Dore "The Angel Appears to Balaam".  My big takeaway for from the Messiah conference, (the one that gives direction and I'll keep coming back to), is wrapped up in two verses about our path in life.  Specifically, the narrow path.  These two verses became the focus of my readings, and of my thoughts:    The first one tells us that this path that's God's best is narrow and limiting, requires us to shut things out, give things up.   But clearly we are to choose this path, it leads to the best life now, and in eternity.  We may not actually  want  to be on that path.   Clearly it's counter-cultural to follow God and His calling.   Few will understand you or lift you up.  Few may support you.  So treasure the friends who do.  Circumstances may turn against you.  So train your thoughts with the promises God has made you.   We may not want  to be on the narrow path sometimes...
Read more

The Wheel of Mortality and the Bumper Cars Of Life.

-
Image
Temple Emmanuel, the synagogue I grew up in, had a picnic every year at the nearby Clementon Lake Park. The Park opened in 1928, just in time for the great depression to fossilize it as a relic Hoover era entertainment culture. It always seemed to need a coat of paint. It's been in the news lately for being saved from the bulldozer by an eccentric investor. But I remember if for one thing: not its wooden framed roller coaster, or the lake in the center with paddle wheel cars, nor its hot dogs and cotton candy, but for every boy's first memory of the freedom of the road. The bumper cars. Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild" is probably about a measuring up to a white "YOU MUST BE THIS TALL" line on the wall at the bumper car pavilion somewhere, everywhere, at amusement locations throughout these fruited plains. I grew 10 inches in my sophomore year of high school. As a result, year after year, I did not "measure up" to the required h...
Read more