Crown of Thorns -- Tin Silver Bells

Today, the fourth installement in the "Crown of Thorns" poem cycle where each poem begins with the final line of the preceding poem.

If you have missed the first installments, you can follow the links here:

However Many Castles

Recycled Prayers

The Finest Wine

I think the theme of tin silver bells refers to the ten sapphires (sefirot) on the Tree of Life (Yetzer Haiim). If you can listen without guile, perhaps you will hear them ringing sweetly as they swing in the Holy Breeze, ornaments on the eternal Xmas Tree.

As for me, somewhere, tin silver bells ring!

I hear the quiet softness of their chimes
and yearn to hang my lamp where angels sing
upon that Christmas tree until the end of time.

But who do I kid?
I'm dreaming in the shade!
It isn't likely I'll ever make the leap
and keep the simple promise that I made
to stay awake!
Instead, I fall asleep...

"Can you not stay awake for but a single hour?"*

"The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak!"

What did he see from that lonely, wooden tower**;
when darkness came, and angels dared not speak;
and the Final Question was hanging in the air:

"Why have you forsaken me?"
"Where are you!"
"Where?"

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* "Can you not stay awake..." (Matt 26, 38-45; Mark 14, 37-41)

** "Wooden Tower...", re.: the final verse of Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" -- ("He spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower / and when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him / he said all men shall be sailors then / until the sea shall free them..").