Zerain

This is a poetic form I don't use very often anymore.  But it seemed appropriate for this subject...mostly because that's how it came to me one night.  I don't know...I just tried to make that sound very scholarly and then I just realized that I didn't pick the form at all...it just happened.  Hahaha!  Anyway, this poem is named for the shepherding village where I lived when I studied in the Basque Country of Spain.  This not-so-deep poem was inspired by the breathtaking view from the balcony of the apartment overlooking Mt. Txindoxi (pronounced Chin-do-kee) and the little town of Segura beyond the sheepfold.  If you get a chance to go, GO!  Go for the quiet and the rest.  Some of my hardest wrestling with God occurred there in that little village with the mountains surrounding me and mist falling on my head and little creeks trickling by my feet and the sheep...always the sheep...watching my little drama.  :)  I learned a lot about sheep there.  Once I watched a shepherdess leaving her pasture.  The sheep followed her to the gate.  They bleated distressingly as she descended the hill to the road.  They followed her with loud protests until the gate would not allow them to run anymore.  Then they stood there and cried until they couldn't see her anymore.  So...sheep.  They get REALLY attached to their shepherd!  And I want that to be true of me too.


When I survey the landscape of my memory
And rest my mind on scenes not too long past
A quiet Spanish night appears before me
And beckons me stand still and let it pass

I step out on the balcony and ponder
Where lights dance in Segura far below
And bleating sheep destroy the rural silence
Their slumbering shepherds clueless of their woe

Txindoxi towers mutely in the distance
Those faithful, stoic walls that hem me in
And limit while expanding still the vision
That now is just a memory within.