Waiting 5: Rahab

They seldom ask why the men were there.
As they slipped down the wall, I thought:
Just as it's always been,
the men sliding away to their homes,
the shame slipping off their well-oiled skin.
Nothing touched them.
They would take their promised land just like they always had;
mine would be the leftovers,
mine the scarlet thread left dangling mid-air.

Only, as the walls shook like a pounding heart and
amidst this trumpeting change of the guards I caught
my breath and whispered, We're done for,
I found
my legs still standing, my
blood still pounding, my family
still about me, though all
Jericho fell in a mighty gasp,

and weak
though a scarlet thread was in such a blast,
it held me, bound me, and in that impossible instant I saw, 
while stone crumpled
to sand to rubble to dust,
I saw 

multitudes here,
beyond my sight, my time,
spread like a desert, like sand,
running, crawling, limping, reaching
grabbing like I grabbed,
clutching like I clutched,
at this scarlet grace dangling
its chance at life.

Now I live among them,
have learnt their wild, sea-parting stories,
have seen their virtues, their shames,
learnt the way grace drops like rain,
washing away, never denying, shame.
The scarlet hangs still, where I first placed it.
Feeble and flimsy the way to life often is,
scarlet the blood of mercy
coursing through our feeble veins.