Stones

I looked at the mess, piled up there on the beach.
Was a child at play here?
Flotsam, trash, mud; it looked smelly.
Sand, pebbles, and some sea shells lay there, mostly broken,
But one looked surprisingly whole and almost beautiful.
Once, I knew, the shells contained life,
But not now.
And there was a piece of wood.

I saw the sand piled up around these things.
The child had tried to create something of it all;
It looked like he failed,
Or perhaps the waters have just eroded his work.
I can’t imagine what he was thinking;
But perhaps the child once created a thing of beauty here, at least to him.
Will he return again, I wonder, to renew it?
Will I be there to see his vision?

I remember another jumbled “creation” that I see today,
Another hodge-podge piled high; and some people laugh at it.
I hear people laughed even at its start; for it was a mess then, too.
But, I read, in the hands of a craftsman,
A miracle happened, and a great thing was created, to stand forever.
It seems eroded now, to me, and it takes
Great imagination to remember what it was,
And perhaps may be again?

It all started with a young maiden, Mary, and, some said,
A strange husband. What an odd pair.
And then a child. Only one?
(Perhaps they were not blessed.)
But he grew, and wandered, and over time
Brought home odd friends, Peter and Paul,
Thomas and John --- and Mary Magdalene!?
What beauty or good could ever be created from this eclectic mess?

The Child’s creation seems all jumbled now; His vision clouded to our eyes.
It started surprisingly well and endured, but now the Master’s work seems in disarray.
It’s said beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and its Creator.
Perhaps I need glasses.
Or perhaps I need to trust in visions I cannot see, because I did not make them.
All my creations have quickly crumbled, like the one on the beach;
No one imagines them today, as I planned and saw them then.
Perhaps all that exists today, for all these efforts, is stones, for great buildings yet to be.