On a Maundy Thursday Walk

The Creator was

walking by the sea, the

Holy Book says. Finely-tuned

senses — flooded with

intense awareness — tested

a clear serene constancy.

Who can imagine it, sullied

as our senses are? Faulty as are even our

most excellent makings?

The perfection of

created Being, in the perfect

morning was born from the walker-by-the-sea’s

imagination. At a word —

the hot smell of sunned rock, of

the sea, the sea, the sound of lapping, bird-calls,

the sifting sponginess of sand

under the sandals, delicate.

April light — all, at a word

had become this almost-overwhelming

loveliness.

Surely the exultation —

the Artist

Himself immersed in

His work, finding it flawless —

intensified the so soon

leaving (lifted out of

mortal life for good

forever).

That too eludes

us who disbelieve that we

also shall say goodbye to

trees and cherished friends and

sunsets and crunching snow

to travel off

into a solo death.

How much more, that

(suffering this

creation to go under

its Maker, and us all)

He, the Father of love, should stake it all

on a sufficient

indeed on an essential

pivot.