Damned
My friends disappeared down the street,
walking down the wide, paved road.
I stood there watching them go,
watching their shadows fade
into the darkness,
until there was nothing left
but my own shadow,
alone in the circle of hope
left by the street lamp.
My stomach heaved as I walked
to the edge of the river,
and looked at the dark rolling waters.
I watched the mass of the water, moving
as a serpent�constricting its body
to move deftly down the bank.
I watched it follow the riverbed,
flowing in the same direction,
bending to the contour of the bank.
Not choosing its own path
but the one that has been traveled for centuries
and will be traveled for many more to come.
It does not know why or how it follows
one path over another
but follows it anyway.
Why rush to the end?
Will the ocean not poison the waters with salt?
It is much more valuable
to have fresh water than salt water.
And it is difficult to remove salt
once it has infected the fresh.
And yet, it is so easy to make fresh water salty.
So why rush to become salty
only to regret it later
and not have the ability to make it undone?
And so the waters rushed past me,
and I yearned to stop them;
to dam the waters;
to prevent them from becoming salty
to stop them from following the masses.
I imagined the river after it twisted
out of my sight.
The waters begin to move farther and farther,
The course more difficult to change
farther down.
Finally, they reach the ocean
and realize their mistake.
They try to escape,
pounding back again and again,
in an effort to be free.
The undertow knocks them down
and sucks the life out of them until
there is no more resistance
to keep from being swept away
and carried out to sea to be
lost forever.
I marveled at the power of God
and how He could watch each drop follow
the bend to death.
He knows each drop personally,
As he knows each individual human�
the shampoo he prefers
or the unique sound of his laugh.
He loves them always, even as they ignore Him.
I see Him calling out to them,
calling my friends to leave
the river while they still can,
but they do not hear Him.
His calls and pleas are drowned by the endless
roar of the waves and rapids.
But He does not give up.
And yet, they do not listen
and are damned.
I looked back at the road,
hoping for a glance of the shadows that had
once danced on the street.
I saw nothing.
I wanted to build a dam for them.
But they would seep through the cracks.
My temples throbbed as I left the street lamp
and walked back to the hotel alone.
What was it going to be in the end?
Dammed or Damned?
[ A r t ]
[ H o m e ]