In anguish

 Haiku of an aching heart

He is in anguish

for his people; the prophet,

who feels their distress.

Alienated

from their God and King, who seems

to have departed.

Provoked to anger,

God questions them: Why seek you

after foreign gods?

They cut themselves off

from God, forgetting God's law,

flirting with evil.

The harvest is past,

the summer come to its end,

and we are not saved.

Their hurt is my hurt;

my people, broken and lost.

I mourn with dismay.

They languish, wounded,

unhealed. Will there be no balm

found in Gilead?

My tears have no end.

I am a fountain, weeping

for my lost people.

© Ken Rookes 2022

Crying in the wilderness

Crying in the wilderness,
weeping in the bush;
feeling some of the pain, fear,
despair and disappointment.

The prophets have been silenced;
only their tears remain,
dripping unseen from holy cheeks.

They say the Lord is coming.
Perhaps it is the tears,
the necessary tears,
by which our hearts are prepared.

Weeping in the wilderness,
crying in the bush.

© Ken Rookes 2013

Yes, I know the exegesis is dodgey, but it might hold some truth, anyway.

O that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears

 

Jeremiah 9:1

My people turn away
from light’s revealing rays,
seeking shadows.
My people stop their ears
to the cries of the lost, of cast-off wanderers,
of the unworthy and the fearful,
preferring pretty ditties of distraction.
My people build dams to hold back tears,
high walls around their hearts;
they refuse to weep or ache.
The thirsting land groans abandoned,
a salty wilderness where compassion grows limp
and wilts in rising indifference;
a desolate place where justice is found
only by digging deep below dry creek beds.
Truth, falling frail like dew before dawn,
evaporates unvalued and vanishes,
unseen by those who sleep late.
A modern luxury, who can afford it?

O that my head were a spring of water
and my eyes a fountain of tears;
and that grace might flow
like a never-ending stream!

© Ken Rookes