Today's Poem Inspired by Matthew 7:26-27
He came with plans drawn in the mind's bright eye,
a builder eager for the rising day,
where level ground stretched wide beneath the sky
and promised ease along the sheltered way.
No hammer struck the stone, no trench was laid,
no deep foundation quarried from the hill;
the sand was soft, inviting, lightly swayed
by every breeze that wandered at its will.
With beams of haste and walls of quick consent,
he raised a dwelling fair to look upon,
its windows catching light as if it meant
to stand forever when the light was gone.
The roof was tiled with dreams of smooth repose,
the doors swung open wide to welcome all,
and in its halls the careless laughter rose
like echoes answering a siren's call.
Yet every builder knows, though few will hear,
the earth's own voice beneath the shifting floor:
the grains that part beneath the heaviest tier,
the subtle slide that waits for something more.
He heard the words once spoken on the mount,
the Teacher's voice that carried through the crowd,
describing two who built, one on the fount
of rock, the other where the sand allowed
a quicker start, a cheaper, sweeter cost.
He nodded then, agreed the tale was wise,
but turned away before the meaning crossed
the threshold of his heart to shape his eyes.
The seasons turned, the sky grew iron gray,
and from the distant hills the waters came.
First gentle drops that tapped a soft ballet
upon the roof, then torrents without name.
The streams awoke, once dry and cracked with heat,
now roaring rivers swollen past their banks,
their currents tearing at the fragile seat
where pride had set its temporary ranks.
The winds arose, not whispering but wild,
a chorus howling judgment through the night,
they battered doors and shook each trembling child
of architecture built without the light
of patient digging, of the costly choice
to seek the bedrock hidden far below.
The house groaned once, a low protesting voice,
then tilted, cracked, began its fatal slow
descent into the flood that claimed its frame.
Beams snapped like brittle bones, the roof gave way,
the walls dissolved in liquid earth and shame,
and all that once stood proud became the prey
of waters rushing toward some distant sea.
A great crash echoed, louder than the storm,
the sound of every promise torn and free,
of every shortcut meeting its true form.
The builder clung to splintered wood and cried
as waves enfolded what his hands had made,
while far across the torrent, on the side
of solid stone, another house was stayed.
Its cornerstone had drunk the Teacher's word
and let it sink through every layer deep,
till obedience became the pulse that stirred
the very mortar binding stone to keep.
When rain descended, fierce and unrelenting,
the floods rose high, the gales beat without cease,
yet still it stood, unbowed, its strength presenting
a quiet witness to enduring peace.
Not spared the tempest, no, but held within
the grip of what no current could remove:
the doing of the truth where hearing kin
had only paused, admired, and failed to prove.
So let the parable in silence speak
to every soul that lifts a beam today:
the sand is pleasant, soft against the cheek,
but rock demands the labor of the way.
Choose now the dig, the sweat, the deeper cut,
the costly yes that turns the word to deed,
for storms will come, as storms have always shut
the careless out and crowned the one who heeds.
The crash resounds through history's long hall,
a warning carved in ruin's broken stone:
what stands forever answers to the call
not merely heard, but lived, and lived alone
upon the rock where Christ's own teaching lies,
unmoved, eternal, waiting for the wise.
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