3 january 2012
THE SAMARITAN WOMAN
At Jacob's well a mille of teardrops dried:
Without repenting of a sin she found
A spring of water welling up inside
To life eternal, perfect, and profound,
Where Jesus makes his glory known: to scamps
And junkies, cons and mental patients, drunks
With dogs unloved in migrant squatters' camps,
Samaritans in lousy shelter bunks -
Yet stands sunk in thought as deep as taproot
When empires implode and dynasts crash hell
Because they were too blanched to kiss the foot
Of one aqua cool saint by a blue well
Who found the living water in her soul
And showered down a marigold-spiked knoll.