Spring is almost here, bursting with new life and old longings, and I have a poem to match the season. Are you thirsty? Then read on…
(See here for an introduction to this monthly series from Mom.)
I think this poem will sing most powerfully if takes your ears by ambush. So, first the poem, then some reflections from Mom.
LIFE THIRST: L’CHAIM
How thirsty you are in the spring,
Earth with your thousand mouths.
Everywhere orifices open
Gaping for trickle,
Stream and torrent.
“A drink please,” you whisper,
“Please, more water, please.”
Mounds of snow you demolish,
Water that travels for miles to slake your thirst.
Cracked skin softens to mud,
Leaves compost, soil moistens,
Thirsty for more, for the future, for life.
Woodlands and roadsides chorus
With the trickle,
Rush,
Thunder of running water,
Gulping faster,
Gasping for breath,
Eyes closed,
All mouth,
Lifting your glass–“To life! To life!”
How thirsty you are in the spring,
Earth with your millions of mouths,
Recalling a dry, dusty hill
In a sun-scorched Judean town
Where the thirst of a thousand generations
Whispering for water–“Please, a drink.”–
Culminated in one agonizing cry
From One lifted up–“I thirst!”
And the parched world drank
As His blood trickled,
Gushed,
Flowed–
A strange, salty drink to satisfy the thirst of the millennia!
Everywhere you hold high
Crystal goblet, plastic tumbler,
Tin cup,
Gasping for life,
Gulping faster,
All mouth,
Belly overflowing with Living Water.
Lifting your glass to Him who calls–“To life! To life!”
–Elaine Gingrich, March 2004
Reflections from Mom
My husband and I raised our four children in Georgian Bay country in Ontario, where the rocks, lakes and trees cry out God’s grandeur. This poem began with a spring walk, listening to the exuberant sounds of rushing water. I can still see the icy rock cuts with rivulets of water running down into the gurgling ditches on Blue Lake Road. The thirsty earth drinking in new life triggered the image of celebrating Jews in Fiddler on the Roof, thirsty for life and hope, lifting their glasses in the Hebrew toast “L’chaim!”–“To life!” The whole earth is toasting life in springtime. An even deeper thirst draws us to lift our glass to Christ who lifted His voice and then His dying body in the ultimate celebration of life. What a price He paid to give us the water of life! We honour Him today when we drink the cup of communion, remembering His blood that flowed one spring day about 2000 years ago.
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