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Foreword:

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Someone very important to me gave me this image.

After he mentioned it, as he does,

He alluded to some parabolic, highly esoteric bit of text

That it seemed only he completely understood -

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In part, because I hadn't read what he'd referenced

And because he didn't provide it with any context.

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Funny.

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He said, for him it was Nebuchadnezzar, odd,

All I really remember from that story

Is a kind of Grecian hubris 

And a king that eventually became a beast.

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I

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Two hands allayed parallel

To the sides of an empty cup -  

A beggar's cup - 

Held with the kind of gentle fragility

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That becomes somebody with nothing else to hold.

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Bent knees, a dusty street,

Fabrics ripped and torn

And the soft, 

Hopeless cradling of it 

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As though it were a baby, stillborn.

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II

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An overflowing cup is held 

Waywardly into the sky - balanced

Upon outstretched fingertips,

Overhead, on-high,

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And spilling running water 

Down the full length of her arm - 

Into the creases of her clothing,

The gravel beneath her feet 

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And trickling little rivulets 

Along the short-breadth of the street.

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Grace, 

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All prayer calls for grace - 

Begs, sometimes 

Broken, in 

Ritualistic plea - 

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And whether it comes from god,

His ghost, or something else

Entirely,

The river is always there.

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And when presented with an empty vessel - 

So the story goes - human beings 

Cry out for mercy

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And the cup, then, overflows.

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