50+ Lifestyles

Max’s Musings

By Max Molleston

This time of year is significant for the Judeo-Christian traditions. We are in a mode of celebration. I am reminded of great acts in religious history, and smaller acts of faith as men and women and their offspring gather for the significance, as special times approach, arrive and pass. Many years ago, Margaret Rinkel, a poet of Mahomet, Illinois submitted her poem to the Mississippi Valley Poetry Contest, a nationwide call for entries, headquartered in the Quad-Cities. At that time, I was in charge of the contest. Margaret’s poem, The Stonecutter, did not win in the Religious category, but I have kept it all this time, to reveal it this month. The energy for her poem is set in the Holy Bible, II Kings, and II Chronicles, Old Testament. It is Biblical history and recorded history in antiquity. It is about protection of the spring-fed water supply into Jerusalem and the work to protect it from the Assyrian advance, during the reign of Hezekiah, around 700 B.C.

The Stonecutter

I am a cutter of stone, a builder of walls,
Foundations, lintels. I have been known to carve
A statue or two for the temple. I know rock
And the strength of it. Heavy it is to the mind,
Heavy to the muscle. Could I have seen
Ahead the toil and weighed the dread, I might
Have spared my aging bones a painful burden.

Here you see the breach was made, here
The inscription records our labor, marks completion
Of King Hezekiah’s hidden conduit
Beneath Jerusalem, twelve Hundred cubits
From Gihon springs to Siloam’s pool, cut through
Solid rock. Barely a season after
Assyria sacked Lachesis, we began.

We swing axe to axe, each man with
His fellow, hacking through forgotten stone
Of ages past. Seasons waned and still
We chiseled. I say this, not without shame,
That with every cubit measure forward,
I became a prisoner of the gloom.
Darkness seizes the soul when the lamps burn low.

Reading this poem and the history, not only Biblical, but actual work (the tunnel is still there) brings us to miners’ plight over time. It has been many decades that mechanical means mines precious metals, coal included, inside the earth. Pick axe action driven by men and muscle, moved tons of coal to the surface in Illinois and Iowa. All of that is done in Iowa, but profitable Illinois mines continue to operate, under some ecological stress (coal fired energy is targeted) bringing bituminous rock to burn for all kinds of energy needs. A TV series I created for WHBF in the early 1970s titled “Coal, A Burning Issue,” brought me, and hopefully viewers, lots of new information, and refreshed them on mining. This is not to diminish the subtle power of Margaret Rinkels  poem, her great creation from slim Biblical quotes about the Siloam Tunnel, carved from limestone rock around 700 B.C. Often we need reminders of the past, which is our past, one way or another.

Enjoy your Holidays, and revisit us in the new  year.