You’ve been living in the country
for fifty plus years,
on this street
for twenty plus years.
Sometimes a slightly parted curtain,
sometimes suspicion wearing a shadow of sneers
plays your part
as the immigrants descend the stairs.
Yes, you’ve been living here a long time,
long have been steeped in the culture and clime,
conversant with the latest events,
long accustomed to the look
of the country’s history – tumult-faceted –
as the chapters of a familiar book.
Yet overconfidence has overtaken you.
Can you be sure extensive experience
coupled with developed common sense
endear you to Me?
A man may have lived with a wife
tracing the contours of her habitual way
for 30, 40, 50 years –
yet her heart, her soul may be far away…
What experience would presume to see,
though experience stretch for fifty years,
may miss or affront the heart of Me
that nourishes, nurses the country’s soul.
Your experiences have jaded you;
your lack of humility has ossified you.
Can you be sure the freshly-arrived,
those descending the stairs, foreign to you,
are not closer to My heart than you?
Unbeknownst to you their bowl
may bear fresh fruit yours does not,
such fruit as may feed the country’s soul.
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