John 5

Thirty-eight years I have watched
the surface of that same water
stir,
sigh,
welcome,
heal, (Glory! Glory! Glory!),
resign to gravity,
return to glass,
cast heaven
back upon

its distant
self.

The Earth is mostly silent,
though it consumes, draws all
strength down, down
into some hungry core.

Of all men, shouldn’t I know
the extent of my own weight?
I am proficient in useless extensions.

A man’s legs are built to defy
the bondage Eden won.
Each two-second stride is a flight
from this cursed prison.
Yet, limbs of clay,
we are Adam,
waiting still for breath.

When I was twenty,
I was caught in the rain.

I dragged myself through the street mud,
elbow-by-wrist,
working until my palms bled.
Then I resigned,
lay chest up in the downpour,
staring into the realm of God.

When I was thirty-three,
I soiled myself on this street
before a group of young women.

I folded down upon my own filth,
trying to hide what I had done.
Then the flies came,
and I wept.

I have had no one to carry me
to the house of grace.

“Take up your bed, then,
And walk.”

He spoke,
and walking was accomplished.

I ran like a child,
full of dignity and reliance.

“Put down your bed,”
they said,
as if by the strength of two man legs,
a day so holy as this
might be protected.