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
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