CHRIST CALMS THE STORM

I finally got around to going to the White House poetry session last evening which featured John W. Sexton as the guest poet.I had previously heard John at a poetry event for schools at the Belltable a year or two ago and was somewhat familiar with his work.He reads his poems in a very engaging dramatic style which grabs the ear and draws the listener in to the heart of the poem.This poem The Storm certainly stopped me in my tracks last night,presenting the old familiar story of Jesus calming the storm in a fresh and insightful light.The poem is taken from Johns collection The Prince’s Brief Career,an entire volume of writing(poems and prose) dedicated to the life of Jesus Christ.

THE STORM

Although they had said
He was a carpenter,
I could tell by his talk
That he knew all about water.
With words he could turn
The agitated crushing sea
Into a motionless solid beam
Of undressed timber ;
Or with words again, conjure,
From the winding grain of wood
The uneasy movement of a river.

There had been that time,
Very early on,
When he had come in our boat,
And we were overtaken
By a storm.
The waves beat about the craft,
until we thought we were gone,
And all the while
he was asleep in the stern.
One of us had awoken him
and angrily said,
“Do you care if we drown?”
and he had stood up
in the middle of the boat,
and unfurling his robes
like a sail,
gave an enormous shout.
And he screamed and screamed
until nothing existed
but the noise
coming from his mouth;
and the boat seemed to turn
not to the tumult of the storm,
but on the axle of his throat.
and when he finally stopped,
it was as if the wind and rain
had been sucked into his gullet,
for the lake and sky were subdued.
And he turned around, and smiled,
and said,”Brothers,you lack faith.”
Then he lay down once more
with his head on the pillow,
and fell asleep.
And soon he was as still
as the dark waters
that surrounded us.

Up until then the sea
had been my master.
But now I had a new master,
his wet head resting unconcerned,
as we drifted on.

John W. Sexton