A Sky That Carries
- A Sky That Carries
There are bells ringing all through the Judean hills: great clatter of rejoicing,
great wresting of the sound of metal singing. This is how we’ve learned to declare our joy.
The sky, blue and everlasting, is splitting beneath the weight
of everything. It is made new: a sky that carries all the strains from iron bells
we will create. Their deep ringing sings through it like an old call
to hurry our rejoicing. There is time, they say, only for this gratefulness,
only for this urgent joy. So here it is, my word to you: I am waiting,
waiting on the edge of this new earth, waiting while the hills [End Page 150]
reflect like earthen mirrors all the clamor of this plea. There is only time for this.
Time for us to set, at last, our hearts into the great broad river of this ringing sky. [End Page 151]
Jacob Newberry is pursuing a PhD in creative writing at Florida State University. He recently returned from Jerusalem, where he held a Fulbright Fellowship in creative writing. Winner of the 2012 Ploughshares Emerging Writers’ Contest in Nonfiction, his work can be found in Granta, Ploughshares, the Kenyon Review, the Iowa Review, the Southwest Review, and Best New Poets 2011, among others.
