By Walt Garlington
Rivers and streams of water
Sparkling like clear crystals
Amid rolling hills clothed in grass
And trees emerald-green,
Fountains seeping from solid
Mountain sides, as if struck
By the rod of Moses,
Birdsong alone the hushed
Stillness breaking that rests
Blithely upon the whole –
Some Adamic soul who
Possessed deeper vision
Named the Natural State
Rightly. Her beauty is
Both pristine and profound,
But she has not yet fulfilled
Her God-given purpose.
She waits for the rhythmic
Sounding of the semantron
Early in the dusky dawn,
The rich voice of ringing bells
Nestled in their towers,
Prayers and psalms read and sung
At every hour of the day,
For Eucharistic bread and wine
Consecrated on holy altars,
Pentecost re-enacted,
The Holy Ghost descending
And filling every mite
Of matter with the flames
Of sanctifying Grace,
For the Jesus Prayer
Whispered and sighed from lips
Of angelic hesychasts
As knees softly touch the floor
Inside of cells or upon
The soft soil of the earth
Beneath the brilliant blue sky,
For the transfiguring
Beauty of the icons
Through which we see the cosmos
Remade, shimmering with God’s Glory –
The Southern people await
The flowering of monasticism
In the land of Arkansas.
As Lindisfarne for English,
Iona for the Scottish,
Mount Athos for the Greeks,
Thebaid for Africans,
Were monastic nurseries
And strongholds for their folk,
So Arkansas will be
For Dixie’s Orthodox,
Her quiet comeliness
Calling to God-seekers
Like the forests and lakes
Of Glendalough summoned
Saint Kevin in Ireland
And the Vale of Glamorgan
Attracted the Welsh saints
Illtyd and Cadoc and
The thousands of other monks
Who gathered round these abbas.
Arkansas, mythical
Land of enchanting woods
And waters, she has not
Yet told her greatest tales
Nor shown her fairest splendor.
Walt Garlington is a chemical engineer turned writer and editor of the website Confiteri: A Southern Perspective. This longtime Southern Baptist, then Anglican, was united to the Orthodox Church in 2012 and makes his home in Louisiana where he attends a GOA parish.
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