Photo by Dmitry Rozental on Shutterstock
A Stranger’s Peace
The smell of sawdust I breathe in
As I work on the assembly line.
The monotonous, mechanized creation of orange crates
Gives my spirit peace — a stranger’s peace.
I’ve become accustomed to my repetitious role
Binding the crates with an industrial staple gun
And tossing one after another down the line.
My mind wanders through space and time.
“In my mind's eye” Jethro Tull plays as I remember
The guitar chords opening “Sossity You’re A Woman.”
I pull the staple gun trigger with a loud metallic BAMM
As my hands remember her soft flesh
And as the metal staple penetrates the wood
I breathe in the smell of her skin and the scent of her breath.
I sense the unknown, the mysterious,
And that which hangs in the balance
As I toss the next box down the assembly line
And I return from the Deep and Dark
To the reality of the factory.
We are strangers here
But in the haze of sawdust
We have come to know each other.
I’m one of many speaking in different tongues.
We barely understand each other
But for our gestures
And understanding the smell of sawdust
The cold of winter and the dry heat of middle eastern summer.
On this afternoon, we also share seeing
As we gaze upwards
The sight of a white bird as it flies into the factory
Flying through the haze of sawdust
Above the noise of the assembly line.
We have all traveled here in each other's footsteps
But each of us perceives the white bird
As it circles above our work together
Through different eyes.
Divergent paths have brought each of us here
Amid this labor of strangers in an ancient land
In this factory that will someday become ancient
In the Valley of Jezreel.
By accident through an open window
Or by design, it’s origin and purpose unknown,
This creature hovers above us
In the land of Israel.
In the Moment
In the moment I first saw you
Heard your voice, heard you speak,
Breathed in your scent, joked with you,
Kissed you, inhaled your breath,
Felt the soft creamy flesh of your shoulders,
Saw the beauty, awe, and wonder
Of your profound brown eyes,
Tried to solve the mystery of you,
Held your hand in mine
As we walked a thousand streets.
In the moment I first saw you
You became an archetype
Burned into the memory of my soul.
When I need fuel, when I need fire,
I remember the first time
That I saw your nakedness
Your long brown hair
Soft against the bare skin
Of your shoulders and the beautiful curve of your hips
Your eyes closed as you lay sleeping in the night
Dreaming mysteries.