Proverbs 30 (revised)

Who has mapped every grain of the shore?
Who has cupped the wind in hands?
Who has wrapped the waters in robes?

Not me. Nothing holy moves my tongue.
I have been a fool over and over.
Yet I say this --

Three things cannot be satisfied:

     the parched ground with its mouths cracked open
     the sword, always hungry
     the fire that never says enough

Three things cannot be finished:

     the sea fills with rivers
          yet does not rise
     the eye fills with light
          yet is always looking
     the ground fills with names
          yet does not speak

Three things pass understanding:

     how eagles see
          the clear wheels of air
     how ships find paths
          in trackless waves
     how marriage moves
          between a man and a woman

Oh, Wisdom, this world
is too wonderful for me.

If my heart falters, let it
stop. If my eyes lie,
cut them out. If I am foolish,
cover my mouth. Then lift me,
light me, bring me
to life. Give me joy, give me
love in this world. Help me as I stagger.
Hold me as I sleep.

_________

Because this piece draws a lot of people in from search engines, a note: this is not a translation, not a faithful rendering. More like "variations on a theme by the writer of Proverbs." It is a revision of this poem, and is one of several devotionals I've written recently.

And bother, it's one line longer than my page. At my last job, my boss insisted that I never let a paragraph end with only one or two words on the last line. It was more important to make a neat block of text than to say something well. (I'm not talking about brochures and advertisements and other highly finished pieces. I'm talking about letters and grant proposals.) It used to make me nuts -- but clearly I've internalized it, cause that orphaned line bothers me.