You shall drink from the stream;
I have commanded ravens to feed you there.
—1 Kings 17:1-6
To gaze at the crumbs
delivered, meant to restore,
dropping providentially
from the beaks of ravens—
A tribe lost in the desert
had experienced all these, once.
Today, we hasten
to call it a miracle—
trumping the hunger,
goading that half-
completed crossing.
Yet how come
years later, someone pauses
to recall that haunting moment,
braiding it into a tale
or going far as to write it down,
inscribing it as juncture—
a moment of sure turning
in an almost thwarted journey?
Surely, memory proposes
some gratitude there.
The mind returns to it
not as fable but truth—
the hour converting startled travelers,
and despite their repeated blinking,
their blinded eyes unable to deny
that strange rainfall of grace
from a nameless source.
The heart braving those drylands,
frowning upon that stretch of bareness,
intoning faith—
the reason why some of us
would give in to madness,
obliging to follow,
heedless of losing our way
in that same vast
and burning desert,
centuries later.
D.M. Reyes
D. M. Reyes teaches university-level English, Literature, and Creative Writing. He keeps track of
today’s exciting poetic expressions while teaching creative writing and through occasional duties at the
various national writing workshops. He is completing a book of personal essays on Southeast Asia and
Japan where he researched on traditional iconography and territorial symbols.
