117 - Nimrod

Nimrod
By Jay G. Williams

I

Always, I have loved the hunt:
The dead night wakening
To hone the points
And check each shaft for
Straightness,
Before the dawn melts
The silence of the eastern sky
And the first bright
Sparrow of the morning
Starts from its hidden refuge.

Just at that crack in time,
When all is neither
Night nor day,
Arises the most auspicious hap,
For it is then, if ever,
That one can glimpse,
Or seem to glimpse,
Faint, enigmatic evidence
Of that most elusive riddler,
Which runs before us
Like a thin, invisible thread
Through the seam of time.

Then, between the two worlds,
Beside some hidden forest pool
Shimmering with earth's dark wisdom
Translated by an aged moon,
One sees
What seems to be a footprint,
Like eternity, in the sand,
And presses on,
Revived,
To new adventure.

Jay G. Williams is Professor of Religion and Director of Asian Studies at Hamilton College. He is the author of several books, including Along the Silk Route: A Journey of the Spirit (1991). Several of his articles and poems have appeared in THEOLOGY TODAY.

118 - Nimrod

II.

Friends, I have, who tell me
That the quest is vain,
Those marks, but a frivolous
Illusion perpetrated by
Unsteady light
And that irrational compulsion,
Called by them
The Nimrod Syndrome,
A nemesis which,
In years gone by,
Drove so many
Poor human souls
From their homely senses.

Have you ever really seen one?
They have asked with mock
Seriousness.
Have you even so much as glimpsed
The illusive one in your
Bow sight?
Can you find nothing more serious
To do with your pale life and time
Than to trek endlessly upon some
Fruitless, one-man
Safari?

Ah no, I have replied,
For there is nothing more subtle
Than the one I seek;
Had I seen clearly such a Vision
It would not have been
The One who runs
Before me.
And as for Nimrod,
Are not all of us,
By birthright
His children?
Do not we all
Bear his
Name?

119 - Nimrod

And so I have tramped on
Between night and the light
With arrow notched
And the right hand
Quietly playing upon
My bow string,
Mindfully alert to
Any trace, any
Movement, any
Hint that the
Mysterious one
Might lurk
Within bow shot.
This has been
My vocation
And my life.
It is my tale,
Well told.

III.

But now,
My beard is white with age
And my step has slowed
And my bow's strength
Will scarcely yield
To the feeble drawing power
Of this poor arm;
And the illusive one,
Though as close to me
As my own breath,
I think,
Has not revealed
Its real presence
Yet
To me.

120 - Nimrod

And so,
The quiver has been
Laid aside
And the bow string loosened
On the yew,
And I sit mindfully
Upon my rock,
In the center of the
Clearing,
Between day and the night,
Silently waiting
For the one
So long desired
To lay that
Unseen,
Mysterious head,
Graciously,
Upon this hunter's
Lap.