Innocent

Haiku for contemplating death

A tree, when cut down

still has hope that it might sprout,

and send forth new shoots.

When mortal life ends

there can be no returning.

The line has been ruled.

Images of death.

A lake might lose its water:

a river dries up.

Let me be hidden

among the dead in Sheol;

I long for release.

My words of complaint;

someone write them in a book,

lest they be forgot.

My vindication

awaits me. I shall see God

when my time has come.

There must be someone,

among heaven’s hosts, who knows

I am innocent.

© Ken Rookes 2020

Posted in response to the Narrative lectionary for the third Sunday after Pentecost

Anguish

Haiku to protest innocence.

Such deep depression

to curse the day of one’s birth,

or conception’s night.

Let clouds fall darkly,

let the morning stars be dimmed

and the dawn withheld.

Let all be darkness,

let no joyful cry be heard,

her womb remain closed.

Life is but trouble;

had I not been born, I would

have been spared the pain.

Quit your whinging, Job.

You cannot be innocent;

punishment is just.

You have done much good;

that doesn’t mean you’re blameless.

Come to terms with God.

I won’t be silent.

I will make complaint to God;

I have done no wrong.

Why test us humans,

why bother us constantly.

God, give us a break!

If I sin sometimes

how does that affect you, God;

can't you look away?

God, why target me,

why am I such a burden?

Can’t you let me go?

© Ken Rookes 2020

Posted in response to the Narrative Lectionary for the 14th June 2020.

Is the Lord among us or not?

This is the question, dark and deep

that each person asks, (if we are honest)

from time to time.

Out here in the wilderness

we thirst and we wonder

if we should ever have left Egypt.

The mighty Nile never failed to deliver

its life-renewing waters;

but this Moses and his strange

disappearing God,

of them we are not so sure.

Out here in the wilderness,

away from secure streams

the questions intrude:

what will we drink tomorrow,

how shall we sustain ourselves,

our children and our animals?

Out here in the wilderness

with cracking soil, anxious crops

and lean livestock

we scan the skies and ask

whether the God who fashions clouds,

paints sunsets,

gathers snow in the heavenly storehouses

and brings to stillness the raging winds,

is still among us,

or not?

© Ken Rookes