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A collaboration over too much coffee.
coffee and pen

03 August, 2005

Peter

Contemplating a certain thought of wisdom
on these smooth and broad gentile plains
my brain ached and remembered a room
in a familiar, strange and restless city
where as a young man I was gently led
like a sheep to the fold.
There I was but not alone,
really there were twelve of us
each one timid, fearful and unaware
only silently listening to what He said.

Silently after a little while
we broke bread and ate because we were hungry
and needed food; and we tasted the wine
which was so bitter and also so strangely sweet
that in our thirst we remembered the prophets:
what they had yearned for and,
how easily in our midst we beheld that.

This much of theology I understood
that is, how much ever I saw
not only because it was so tangible and real
but even so because I could fathom it
in my mind and rationalise its implications
but there was something else that happened
which I was not prepared for,
something which made me curiously baffled,
speechless and completely out of ease,
something which, for a moment at least,
forced me into a sudden indecision
that now on reflection I ask myself,
"Why was I hasty to have my feet washed?"

But time has inflicted a better cure
and whenever afterwards I remembered that night
always a new thought strikes me,
a new wisdom speaks to me; as if it was
God himself talking to me and telling me,
how much of myself I have to give to Him;
how much of all that I cherish I have to sacrifice
and how much more I have to lean on Him
to cleanse me and my feet
as I walk reluctantly in these chains
on these smooth and broad Gentile plains
to my inevitable death and obvious glory.

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4 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Ashish,

Good poem, very nicely conceived and unique.

Peter is the disciple Jesus loved the most. His feet were washed by Jesus on the night before he was crucified.

But the title "Peter" made me wonder if it is somebody addressing a poem to Peter. Anyone felt that way?

J

05 August, 2005 14:23  
Blogger SUNITI JOSHI said...

A valid point John, but as Jesus had washed feel of All twelve disciples that night, the poem wouldn't have specifically pointed at Peter.
Lovely poem Ashish.

07 August, 2005 08:01  
Blogger Ashish Gorde said...

Thanks John and Suniti for enjoying this poem. I wrote it a long time ago when I used to write poems almost everyday. Peter has always struck me as an interesting character because of his bumbling nature and the ability to commit faux pas at the drop of a hat. This poem tries to capture what may have been his thoughts at the moment of his matrydom and, as such, it's about Peter and is meant to be reflective, contemplative or both.

07 August, 2005 19:37  
Blogger SPECKLED_BAND said...

Yes, I did think it was about our own Saint here :)))

Nice work, Ashish!

09 August, 2005 09:53  

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