moment before the kneeling disciple. Upon her face freezes an expression of cruel joy. Then she falls forwards on to the floor.
12
The light I cannot see. The sky. The sun.
What I see is the evil of man. What I see is what grows in the darkness. But how can I cut it away? Lord, what use your gardener if he is blind?
On my lips is the prayer I confess from weakness: Make me to see again. Make me vigorous and whole that I may go about as I please and seek out those who betray you and be again as I once was. Let me show you the love I carry like breath all this ancient lifetime, the love that is yet like a sword that would cut down your enemies.
If I could see.
Let me serve you again with strength of body.
If your hour is not yet at hand, let your servant see again and stand fortified. I would hold what is. I would I were a better servant. Through my fingers now falls the water.
The Apostle sits in the inner cave, Linus by the entrance. He has returned from speaking with Ioseph and his spirit is low. Not because he has learned of the heresy spreading, for he knew this, but because he feels his physical weakness and wishes for the strength of youth, and because in him rage finds no release. The bones of his knees grind together as he moves from the stool and kneels. Suddenly the entire of him is racked with aches. They announce in his bones, in the bending and straightening, in the pulling and flexing of aged ligature. His elbows, from the near infinitude of crooking for prayer, are most comfortable foreshortened, as though his arms are wings folded in front. Each knuckle is swollen with small purses of pain. At the thin joints of his wrists are risen knobs, lumps of discomfort. His back curves, as though some force he resists bends him toward the ground. Here in his neck is a knife pressing; it advances if he tries to lift his head toward the sky. So he stoops forward, holds pressed and cupped the flimsy flesh of his hands, wherein seems a nest of bones. There is the pain of years, time itself a hurt that sings without relent. It is about him, an everywhere. He does not seek the source of it, or a remedy. But instead takes the dolour as a condition of living, the near century of his continuance. It is moments only, as he kneels, the pain orchestrating along the various podia of his body, before the Apostle can pray himself beyond.
He prays the first in words, as if he speaks personally, and knows that he is heard. But soon, to escape the hurt of time, he escapes time and is silent and drifts from the space, and is no longer present to the cave but restored to his own youth and the most meaningful days of his life.
He has scenes of extraordinary clarity. He can feel the sun of a certain day, the dust of the road. A bird he did not know he saw. But these moments are in disarranged order in his mind. He has poor remembrance of their chronology, and this is burdensome on his heart. The record that he is wears away from the inside. But this will not matter if the Lord comes soon. He will have endured; he will have remained behind as witness until the Second Coming.
So, hands held together, as if cupping a small bird of faith, he visits a morning of sunlight.
We were on the road. Coming back into Galilee for the second time. We had been in Samaria and you had met that woman at Jacob's well. The woman with her water pot; the others could not understand why you would speak to her.
'Sir, I perceive thou are a prophet,' she said.
'God is a spirit, and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.'
'A messiah is coming,' she said.
'I who speak unto thee am he.'
And afterward she went to the city proclaiming, and from there men had come to see. They had asked of you to stay, and two days we had tarried there, all of us strangely welcomed in that unwelcoming city.
Then, a morning of sunlight.
Come.
We left and walked back out of Judea into Galilee.
We were changed then. Already as we walked on that road we
12
The light I cannot see. The sky. The sun.
What I see is the evil of man. What I see is what grows in the darkness. But how can I cut it away? Lord, what use your gardener if he is blind?
On my lips is the prayer I confess from weakness: Make me to see again. Make me vigorous and whole that I may go about as I please and seek out those who betray you and be again as I once was. Let me show you the love I carry like breath all this ancient lifetime, the love that is yet like a sword that would cut down your enemies.
If I could see.
Let me serve you again with strength of body.
If your hour is not yet at hand, let your servant see again and stand fortified. I would hold what is. I would I were a better servant. Through my fingers now falls the water.
The Apostle sits in the inner cave, Linus by the entrance. He has returned from speaking with Ioseph and his spirit is low. Not because he has learned of the heresy spreading, for he knew this, but because he feels his physical weakness and wishes for the strength of youth, and because in him rage finds no release. The bones of his knees grind together as he moves from the stool and kneels. Suddenly the entire of him is racked with aches. They announce in his bones, in the bending and straightening, in the pulling and flexing of aged ligature. His elbows, from the near infinitude of crooking for prayer, are most comfortable foreshortened, as though his arms are wings folded in front. Each knuckle is swollen with small purses of pain. At the thin joints of his wrists are risen knobs, lumps of discomfort. His back curves, as though some force he resists bends him toward the ground. Here in his neck is a knife pressing; it advances if he tries to lift his head toward the sky. So he stoops forward, holds pressed and cupped the flimsy flesh of his hands, wherein seems a nest of bones. There is the pain of years, time itself a hurt that sings without relent. It is about him, an everywhere. He does not seek the source of it, or a remedy. But instead takes the dolour as a condition of living, the near century of his continuance. It is moments only, as he kneels, the pain orchestrating along the various podia of his body, before the Apostle can pray himself beyond.
He prays the first in words, as if he speaks personally, and knows that he is heard. But soon, to escape the hurt of time, he escapes time and is silent and drifts from the space, and is no longer present to the cave but restored to his own youth and the most meaningful days of his life.
He has scenes of extraordinary clarity. He can feel the sun of a certain day, the dust of the road. A bird he did not know he saw. But these moments are in disarranged order in his mind. He has poor remembrance of their chronology, and this is burdensome on his heart. The record that he is wears away from the inside. But this will not matter if the Lord comes soon. He will have endured; he will have remained behind as witness until the Second Coming.
So, hands held together, as if cupping a small bird of faith, he visits a morning of sunlight.
We were on the road. Coming back into Galilee for the second time. We had been in Samaria and you had met that woman at Jacob's well. The woman with her water pot; the others could not understand why you would speak to her.
'Sir, I perceive thou are a prophet,' she said.
'God is a spirit, and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.'
'A messiah is coming,' she said.
'I who speak unto thee am he.'
And afterward she went to the city proclaiming, and from there men had come to see. They had asked of you to stay, and two days we had tarried there, all of us strangely welcomed in that unwelcoming city.
Then, a morning of sunlight.
Come.
We left and walked back out of Judea into Galilee.
We were changed then. Already as we walked on that road we
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