Occasionally something catches my eye and ideas start forming in my mind and I think to myself, I shall draw my thoughts together into something poetic.
Last week, during what was quite a tough day, I saw a rainbow. I love rainbows. They always whisper hope to me. This one, especially so, reflected as it was in the dark clouds around it, and on the murky sea, and in the puddles on the empty beach.
I mused for a while on the image, and thought I could write a poem about hope shining through the darkness, about covenant promises made long ago, about being carried safe though the storm and seeing rainbow reflections where we least expect them.
But that poem refused to be written. Instead what started to form, as I put pen to paper, were a few rhyming lines about a man who kept building, in the face of much mockery, something that initially didn’t seem to make any logical sense because, despite doubts and storms and long periods of waiting, he knew he wasn’t building this on his own.
Noah
Noah built a boat.
No chance, they said, that it would float
You need to be closer to the shore,
Build less, they said, not more.
But Noah didn’t listen to any of them
for the plans he followed weren’t from men,
And when the doubts crept in, he called to mind
the divine promises he’d heard outlined.
So, determined he hammered every nail
while multitudes laughed, He’s going to fail.
But when the rains fell
Noah could tell
He’d be safe from the storm
And the dark clouds that formed.
And though the days stretched on,
And all solid ground was gone,
Noah patiently waited,
Until the waters abated,
Trusting, as he had from the start,
that eventually the clouds would part,
And the rainbow shine through,
Forever promising, I will be with you.
