If Only I Could

 

If only I could speak

I would tell you I am dumb

Neither do I have feelings

I am totally numb.

 

If only I could see

The many things I own

The many things you offer me;

I don’t even hear you groan.

 

If only I could hear

I would tell you I am deaf,

I cannot hear a word you say,

Of hearing I am bereft.

If only I could move

I would come to you sometime

Just to let you know

I do not even have a mind.

 

If only I could appreciate

The praise you give to me,

I would shout it out aloud

I am an absolute nobody!

 

I am dependent on you,

Actually you are my source,

Even in spite of you

I still lack the life force.

I can do absolutely nothing

Nothing at all for you,

You express an idea, an opinion;

I don’t even have a view.

 

Yet you come to me often

Knowing that you are the cause

Why I exist in the first place,

Take a moment and pause.

 

If only I could have a moment

One single life-given minute

I would tell to you your folly

But even then you’d still not quit.

You worship what you create

As though it created you,

Bowing before the created

What a silly thing to do!

 

You pray to me for rain

That will cause the crops to grow,

But there is no life in me

And this I’m sure you know.

 

I sit or stand in one place

Oft in a temple you create

And whether I am clean or dusty

You determine my state.

 

I’ll tell you of an experience

I had a long time ago,

It’s the nearest I came to living

From head down to my toe.

 

I resided in a temple

A temple named after me,

There I sat upon my throne

So that my people there could see.

 

They had won a great battle

And had taken the ark of God,

They had brought it from Ebenezer

To my temple at Ashdod.

 

That night I was disturbed

By morning I had fallen down,

It seemed I bowed in worship

To the ark that was around.

 

I was put upon my throne

And there I sat again

But the second successive night

Found me in greater pain.

This time I fell upon my face

Before the ark of the Lord,

My head and palms were cut off

 By the Almighty God.

 

There is really no other God

The people discovered that day,

His hand brought their destruction

They had contravened His way.

 

Today He is still the same

His power is no less, no more,

If only I had the life you have

His name alone I would adore.

If only I could speak

And if only I could hear,

If only I could see

I would bow to God in reverential fear.

 

But Alas, I am only an image

Inanimate and lifeless

But yet you pay to me homage;

What an awful human mess!

 

Stewart Russell © May 2019