“Hearken unto me, my friends.”

“Hearken unto me, my friends.”

The speaker raises a hemmed hand, motioning.

We draw closer — hesitant, steady —

beneath her robed hood,

eyes of hazel flame.

The psalmist Dust waits, watching,

and we commit,

taking our seats on planked floor.

She reclines across from us,

garments hemp, rough-spun,

hair shorn steel-gray,

eyes still aglow with age and light.

A smile, etched fine by time,

she speaks with gravity:

“Long has He called to us —

the forlorn, the despised,

the discarded and nearly destroyed,

the whole and full alike.

He has called us Beloved, by Name.”

Her nearly white hair falls back in thought.

“We must learn to be present,

to set Him first.

Then everything changes —

the small, the grand,

all seen with new eyes,

as if born again.”

We shrink back, startled by her openness,

the instinctual way she speaks

of the Father’s intimacy —

as though she has seen His face.

Words salted with wisdom,

consecrated,

aflame with the Holy Spirit.

As always Dust,

To you,

For you,

From Him,

In me.