Poem: Mute Fingers

Mute Fingers

Bitter sweet waters

on a tearful strand;

his mute fingers

writing in the sand.

He could not enter,

he could not understand;

this benign ancient mariner

could not fathom the hearts of Man.

They worship diamonds so divine,

scorched from the bowels of the earth;

but of his sand-scripted shrine,

they rip asunder into the hearth.

And the four seas they divide,

claim and reclaim;

the master calligrapher did unite

all lands as the same.

Yet he remains a patient fisher

of simple women and men –

poets, painters, songwriters and seekers –

caught on a lark now and then.

You hear them in the children’s laughter,

you see them playing in the sea,

you see them in their mother and father,

and you can hear their hearts in plea.

A plea the plovers and the sandpipers

will understand;

for he was their teacher and provider

long before Man became Man.

- Joseph Lai