How to be Human

A new poem, on an old theme. I mean, not just old as in biblical, but one which has been important to me since 1988. 

How to be human

He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, ‘Can you see anything?’ And the man looked up and said, ‘I can see people, but they look like trees, walking.’ Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he looked intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

Mark 8.23-25

I washed and, as you do, I do,

and yet I feel it still -

his spit. (Call it, if you will, spittle;

make it medical; it was his gob.)

His twig-fingers and

the wetness and the salt

and the splat and the rubbing in -

it smarted and it hurt.

His were brittle sticks too,

which knew too much of storms and,

yes, the muds which fed him -

the kind of mud which shit is.

And let me say it, let me:

there was no time I had a choice;

no one asked; friends pushed me

in; he out, and it was done.

So say I stand for something

in his glorious story (for I do).

But take the courage now

to note what it might be.

I say what I see:

most of the time,

change his kingdom way

uproots you,

comes slowly,

and without your say,

and works through the medium of pain

(alleluia). 

(c) Patrick Morrow