Meditations in Fast Times: 18. The deer thirst for those brooks

Note to Readers: “Meditations in Fast Times” is a devotional writing experiment for the Season of Lent. Each day during the season, I am writing a poem as a meditation on, taking as my inspiration and intertextual basis, T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”, as well as incorporating the daily office, current events, and other readings—some the same as those Eliot used while composing his seminal work and others.

                18.

The deer thirst for those brooks,
whose waters are diverted by crooks,
who then waste them away or pollute.

Likewise, my soul longs for that draught
surest and purest, wild and without craft;
rich and intoxicating while dilute.

Tears instead have been my cup,
the only food on which to sup;
I am derided as one of ill repute.

I am empty; my soul is poured out,
haunted by thoughts filled with doubt,
my distress, like my thirst, is acute.

From one voice to another, deep woe calls;
amid the white noise of distant falls,
it echoes among the rocks: permute!

Is the call from Another or my own voice?
No matter, it does indicate choice:
hope must in a different path or pursuit.

Now to have found pristine riverbanks,
sorrow is set aside; I give thanks
for this gift, and fare forward, resolute.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen