the WORD Leaps the GAP

For Richard Hays

At the heart of all your words is silence.

In the night of the world you hear bells

Chiming. It is silence you hear. You sense

Peace underneath earth’s noise, wells

Of stillness far down under the daily slog

Through wetlands of knowledge, your life,

The tramp through swamps of books in heaps, log-

Piles, bogs of words, teeming, sweaty … And rife

Too with truth for those hearing beneath the buzz

Of ceaselessly concatenating syllables

The Origin, the Source who IS, who does

Unheard his work, generating multiples

Of being, infinitely, in silence.

His Word you hear. You hear inside night

Melodies mute to most ears, intense

Notes populating scores of starry light.

These you share with us in love, wise guide

To many, to me old friend most dear, seen

Too seldom in the long years, alas, this side

Or that of the ocean, yet in heart near, keen

Brother, in Christ mated long ago,

The night you sang to welcome Christopher to earth,

With joyful, wild chords greeting him: “Hello!” －

Young father exulting at your new son’s birth.

Then Sarah, much-loved daughter － girl! － breaking

On life’s stage － her heart, like yours, like Judy’s,

Set to range God’s wide creation seeking

That place － hers － to plant her tent, send melodies

Skyward, dance, deploy her lively art.

And Chris himself is father now. The years swing

Swiftly. Walk now with Judy to the end,

Listening to the silence. Sing to God, to us. Sing.

And you shall hear Him one day speak: “Welcome, friend.”

By George Hobson, July 2006, 

in the WORD Leaps the GAP: Essays on Scripture and Theology of Richard B. Hays, ix-x.

同場（重複）加映海斯院長的就職宣講：I Have Set Before You Life and Death