The City Goes and Comes

Today, read these two poems, listening for the voice of God calling to you, casting a vision for who the city is and who the city can be…

The River
Octavio Paz

And the city goes and comes and its stone body shatters as it arrives at my temple,
All night, one by one, statue by statue, fountain by fountain,
Stone by stone, the whole night long its shards seek one another in my forehead,
All night long the city talks in its sleep through my mouth, a gasping discourse, a stammering of waters and arguing stone, its story.

Isaiah 65:18-25

Be glad and rejoice forever
    in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
    and its people a joy.
I will rejoice over Jerusalem
    and take delight in my people;
the sound of weeping and of crying
    will be heard in it no more.

Never again will there be in it
    an infant who lives but a few days,
    or an old man who does not live out his years;
the one who dies at a hundred
    will be thought a mere child;
the one who fails to reach a hundred
    will be considered accursed.
They will build houses and dwell in them;
    they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
No longer will they build houses and others live in them,
    or plant and others eat.
For as the days of a tree,
    so will be the days of my people;
my chosen ones will long enjoy
    the work of their hands.
They will not labor in vain,
    nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune;
for they will be a people blessed by the Lord,
    they and their descendants with them.
Before they call I will answer;
    while they are still speaking I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
    and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
    and dust will be the serpent’s food.
They will neither harm nor destroy
    on all my holy mountain,
says the Lord.