Quiet Mountain Stream

Play the Instrumental Song, “Quiet Mountain Stream” while you read this poem.
Copyright 2021, Gerald T. Johnson. All rights reserved.

By Jerry Johnson
To my grandson, Elijah.

If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive. John 7:37b – 39a (ESV)

On the banks of a quiet mountain Stream,
As wakened from a long horrible dream,
I laid down my hurts, my burdens, my sin,
Gazed at the Waters that beckoned me in.

Stepping into the water’s calming flow,
Wading just ankle deep, taking it slow,
Ventured up to my knees, my thighs, my waist:
Sipping the Living Water, sweet to taste.

Swimming deeper – finding a gushing Spring,
Swimming without a crutch on which to cling
Far from the small, scared child on the shore,
Swimming up to The Only Flowing Door!

Such life, such love I had never tasted.
Not the fleeting fun of time gone wasted.
O, The Life was a flowing blast of Real –
A living, a lasting, a loving Meal!

I opened the Door to leave the lie of “feel”
The trickery that pride is the only “real”
Left the hurts and burdens that lurk in “seem”
To find myself in the glory of
The unending flow Above
Of that Quiet Mountain Stream.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. Psalm 46:4 (ESV)

As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. Psalm 42:1 (ESV)