By Jim Perkinson, on John 4:5-42, for the beloved community that meets at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church (right) at the corner of Trumbull and Michigan in Detroit.  

o, the waters, the waters, the waters

o jacob, my father
o leah, my mother
o rachel, crying after the lost ones

the waters, the waters
fall on the dust
drop on the dry
heat and run like beads, like hope
breaking into rivulets, draining, fleeing
into the dust of my feet

o jacob, my brother
o leah, my sister
o rachel in child-birth, in mother-death
crying my heart
crying my heat
crying the fleet drip of hope
into the dust at my feet

you, o woman, in the midday glare
offering these waters from where?

you, o woman, of dark eye
you, o woman, with bone of flint
you, woman, cup your hand
offer the wine of a soul lost sigh
for memory like the dust of reverie

you, woman, give drink
you, woman, give drought
you woman, host the waters
of god in your belly

will you break?
will you fall before your destiny?
will you open the gates of the ghost
and step free?
will you become the water
you came so secretly to sip?
will you turn, now
and flow for me?

o, the waters
o, the waters
o, the waters
of the tears
of god like a river
of the broken open
and the free.

cry for me, o woman
cry for me.