Within a Clam

The poet, on a walk, Meets a clam along the way On the sand, on the beach. Says the clam, “Hello, man,” Says the man, “Hello, clam, Have you got a pearl for me?” Says the clam, “They aren’t free.” Says the man, “What’s the cost? For without one I am lost, In the life, in the cause, In a milly-dilly dum It is gone, in a beat, In a bounce, it is trounced, In a second, who can reckon But the time will eat the hour And the minute will devour What the day had thought it could.”   Says the clam, “I can’t say, But you’re thinking anyway. And your time is numbered, too Never willy-nilly, though, Before time had any meaning, To your secret, beating heart They were numbered, by His art By His power and his truth By His wisdom and his grace. Yes, before the human race On the earth, ever grew, He was there, planning you.”   Says the man, “Is this true, That before I ever was, He was knowing me because Of His perfect selfless self?”   “In a grimble, brimy, grime,” Says the clam, to the man, “What would instigate the time? Life: a riddle or a rhyme! Could it be, in the sea, Moral people came to be? And they live, and they die, Living for a purpose! Why Would you live, just to die? Even if the worst were true, And the earth had yielded you You have faith, and a soul No great doctor can deny. Truly, what do doctors know, When their theories live and grow From the arrogance of science And the sole and lone reliance On a god, of their own Make and riddle, diddle dee? Through their blinded eyes they see Only black and blurry black. Darkness is their dying life, Darkness too, their living death.”   Says the man, “Who then is, What my dying soul can trust, While the world’s fragile crust Will dissolve and flee like dust, Like my heart, with a dottle, And a dittle diedle dee, How I wish now to be free! Oh, the rittle, spittle, little Of the chickened sickened me! I am gone, I am dead, And the world has my head In a brace! In the chase, I am snared and led away And round a roasting fire, With my ankles to the spit— Oh, the horrors of my death! I can’t bear to face it yet!”   Says the clam, to the man, “With a purpose, is a plan, With the plan, was a Man, Who has baffled all the science Of the world’s so-called truth! What do they, know of truth! Without God, nothing is! Without God, nothing was! What can man—a mortal—know? Trust in God and not your heart, That mangled, twisted, sordid thing Lost in black desiring. Live for Him, leave your grim, Tarnished life, for His grace Simply look into His face— Not a shadow on His mien; Nothing dark is ever seen.”   Says the man, “But the pearl—” “What of that,” says the clam, “May I take it?” says the man, Says the clam, “Now you can.”