There was a man with dreams
showing, with dreams
growing on his open face. He said,
I have something to tell
you. Let the prisoners
rise, let the blind,
find eyes, because I have a
message. I found it in a flower blowing
at the edge of the world, or
in my own head—just knowing.
The message is: Don’t suffer.
I want to suffer for you, instead.
The sick came close, with hope
in their eyes. The suffering crowded
to the shore, made wise
by their despair. But others called,
Who are you to talk so! You, the
poor son of a carpenter.
To get away from the crowd, he backed
down into a boat. Seems, said he, to the
fisherman aboard, as if only a stranger
can believe in me (kid born in a manger,
after all.) A prophet, I have found,
isn’t one in his home town. Has to live
alone, sleep like Jacob on a stone, maybe
be seen far off to be believed.
Did he wonder at that time what would
happen to the man, inside? Because not
even forty days and forty nights had
taken away the man he was. I think he
wondered on Geneserett (let down, Simon,
your empty net, your great net—let it
down) at how alone a man must get, at how
his faults must hide, and that they call
him man at last—only to deride.