Salt Stone Sweet

A Fairy Tale in Alliterative Verse

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Come listen, listen, listen
To this tale I have to tell.
Come listen to this tale
Of a village with the strangest well.
Come every one of you with ears.
Are you listening?
Then let me lay it out:

There once was a village on a far desert’s edge
That was watered by the strangest well you could hope to see.
The long years loped past, but they had no cistern nor any system
To collect the coming rain which was so rare
It would have done no good anyhow.
There was no singing spring to deliver water from the deep earth.
There was no water table to spring from.
Such deep desolation, the village should have dried up,
Been blown away long ago by a dusty wind.
Indeed, it might have done but for the miracle workers.
The Rock-beaters.

At the dusty heart of this dry and desolate modge-podge of huts,
There stood a forbidding finger of stone,
Squat and sullen on the sandy ground—God’s own finger stretched to sky.
Each day, the Rock-beaters rose
And made their miracle. They took their ancient staves and staffs
And rained the rock with many blows
Until it cracked and from the crack coursed a mighty flood.

The flowing water fed the fields, gave the wheat a will to grow.
And fill the bellies of the desert men, but, though the creek looked clear,
It set a salt taste upon the tongue.
But who that begs should dare to whine?
Even salted life is better than sweetened death.

The arid village aged on and on through generations.
The old men yoked the young with knowledge to take up sacred staffs and staves.
They fought the rock to draw forth water. They minded their miracle.
Steady stewards, the lot of them.
They lived long, if not well.

But listen, listen, are you listening?
Nothing might have changed
For that stilted, salted town,
Until one day was born a boy
Whose limbs were long and limber,
Whose eyes and ears were larger,
Whose skin was softer.
The shadeless, treeless plain was blinding bright
And hurt his eyes. The salt and sun scorched his skin
Which never grew accustomed to it.
He was a lad ill-suited to the land’s hard way of life.
The old men trained him anyway
To draw forth the miracle
And beat the rock.

Training was a long and toilsome task,
But the boy built muscle fit for work.
He learned the angles, the speed with which to swing.
He took his stave up at the dawn of spring.
His large eyes looked in the pre-dawn light.
His sharp ears ached in the early silence.
His soft skin shivered as he ascended the hill which held the rock.
Its pale side was pocked, notched by the many blows that brought the water.
The boy approached with reverence.
He wondered if the rock resented what he had to do.
His skin itched, anticipated the ache of salt
Once the flood covered his head.
He raised his stave and heard a sigh.

A wind upon the rock?

No. This boy had ears,
And he heard what no one had before.
The stone sighed and sobbed and braced for the coming blows.
The boy stood frozen, feeling himself caught between
The eyes of the old men and the broken-hearted stone.
One ear heard the urging:
The miracle demanded.
One ear caught the crying:
The fearful, faithful grief.

Dents and divots that decked the rock stood in stark relief.
What had seemed so smooth in shadowless, noonday sun,
Showed its scars in this early hour.
‘We need water!’ cried the child to the sobbing stone.
But he hesitated.
He dropped his staff. His shoulders sagged.
He ignored the anger of old men arguing and agog.
Empty-handed now, he embraced the rock.
Though he withheld the blow, forth the water flowed
With a sweet tasting flood.
No salt burned his tongue or skin.
The water rushed over his head and rose 
Above the ankles of the old men.
Drenched, the child sat within the deluge
While the old men danced in their astonished joy.

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Moses Strikes Water from the Rock, Oil on Panel, Gillis Mostaert, circa 1560

May you be blessed with large ears and sensitive skin that you may free yourself from Moses’ mistake.

Sláinte

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