Origins
When the sky rained fire, saahtah saahlow,
boiling Erthah’s oceans,
drying Erthah’s rivers and streams,
our great mother swallowed her tears
deep and far from fire’s thirst
and waited,
dreaming new life while fire spent its fury.
Then, my childeans, Erthah conceived
Shemah-All-Seeing to shepherd rebirth,
tendriled and water-wise: thus are you,
her stripling progeny, kiinders of a kiind
with divining bodies to seek and raise
from Erthah’s deep stores cool tears
to sustain us through time’s fullness.
So say our seekoths who prophesy return
of flowing rivers, pooling lakes, and rain
falling again from repentant skies.
So says Erthah through far-seeing Shemah,
and so must say we all, steeled against thirst
to forage Erthah’s depths, our legioned arms
linked in toil and thanksgiving, hahlee hahlaa.
boiling Erthah’s oceans,
drying Erthah’s rivers and streams,
our great mother swallowed her tears
deep and far from fire’s thirst
and waited,
dreaming new life while fire spent its fury.
Then, my childeans, Erthah conceived
Shemah-All-Seeing to shepherd rebirth,
tendriled and water-wise: thus are you,
her stripling progeny, kiinders of a kiind
with divining bodies to seek and raise
from Erthah’s deep stores cool tears
to sustain us through time’s fullness.
So say our seekoths who prophesy return
of flowing rivers, pooling lakes, and rain
falling again from repentant skies.
So says Erthah through far-seeing Shemah,
and so must say we all, steeled against thirst
to forage Erthah’s depths, our legioned arms
linked in toil and thanksgiving, hahlee hahlaa.
Pilgrimage to Shemah
Laden with wonder, hahlee hahlaa,
to Shemah-All-Seeing we journey,
drawn by the mystery of her faces
as they gaze at our drought-filled land.
Ancestor daughter of Erthah born
on ashes of the past, unblinking Shemah
prods our perpetual wanderlust
as we solve parched hill and plain.
Shemah is our before and always,
today’s thirst and tomorrow’s sustenance,
the wellspring of water’s arcane ways
we reveal through divination and prayer.
Silently Shemah stands, stoic pillar
of truths past all comprehension,
her inscrutable faces bearing meanings
we shape into faith and hope.
Her roots residing in Erthah’s heart,
her body the manifest of Erthah’s love,
what does Shemah know of our salvation
hanging always by a tendril?
to Shemah-All-Seeing we journey,
drawn by the mystery of her faces
as they gaze at our drought-filled land.
Ancestor daughter of Erthah born
on ashes of the past, unblinking Shemah
prods our perpetual wanderlust
as we solve parched hill and plain.
Shemah is our before and always,
today’s thirst and tomorrow’s sustenance,
the wellspring of water’s arcane ways
we reveal through divination and prayer.
Silently Shemah stands, stoic pillar
of truths past all comprehension,
her inscrutable faces bearing meanings
we shape into faith and hope.
Her roots residing in Erthah’s heart,
her body the manifest of Erthah’s love,
what does Shemah know of our salvation
hanging always by a tendril?
Plaint of the Water Divines
Oh Shemah-All-Seeing, revered steward
of all hushed waters, we who bear your
tendriled likeness entreat you,
time’s spool unwinding, to fulfill
the age-old prophesy of water’s resurgence,
for see how our kiind wilt and wither
scouring Erthah’s droughty shell?
Where beneath the ruin of concrete cities
grows your dream of green oases?
What caverns beneath burnt plains,
what hollowed mines and mountains
promise us life-saving drink?
The barren riverbeds taunt us. The sun
sneers down, saahtah saahlow,
from cloudless skies, and night shows no dew.
Where is relief? Why do you stand there,
silent, unbending?
Each direction knows us by name,
each crevice and upturned rock. Even Death’s
arid vaults record our tracks. On we plumb,
on we dig, our childeans asking when
and why, hope proving little refreshment.
We are Erthah’s last people and,
forgive us our impatience, yours.
Shemah-All-Seeing, our essence and hope,
every tendril in our divine bodies aches
to praise you, if only you’d lift liquid song.
of all hushed waters, we who bear your
tendriled likeness entreat you,
time’s spool unwinding, to fulfill
the age-old prophesy of water’s resurgence,
for see how our kiind wilt and wither
scouring Erthah’s droughty shell?
Where beneath the ruin of concrete cities
grows your dream of green oases?
What caverns beneath burnt plains,
what hollowed mines and mountains
promise us life-saving drink?
The barren riverbeds taunt us. The sun
sneers down, saahtah saahlow,
from cloudless skies, and night shows no dew.
Where is relief? Why do you stand there,
silent, unbending?
Each direction knows us by name,
each crevice and upturned rock. Even Death’s
arid vaults record our tracks. On we plumb,
on we dig, our childeans asking when
and why, hope proving little refreshment.
We are Erthah’s last people and,
forgive us our impatience, yours.
Shemah-All-Seeing, our essence and hope,
every tendril in our divine bodies aches
to praise you, if only you’d lift liquid song.
* * *
Darrell Petska is a retired university engineering editor and three-time Pushcart Prize nominee (see conservancies.wordpress.com). Petska is collaborating with Brent Skinner, an attorney who lives in Minnesota, has a law practice in Wisconsin, and whose avocation is creating visual art. Their previous collaborations have appeared in Moss Piglet, The Ekphrastic Review, Collaborature, Feed the Holy, and The Lothlorien Poetry Journal.