Gone off: like fruit from summer

Amos 8:1–12 

I stand here in Canberra, under mid-winter
southern skies, with the Story, and this –
this – is what Holy One shows us:
a basket of fruit from summer.
Holy One says, Sarah, what do you see?
A basket of fruit from summer, I say,
and I can smell it, too
(and I cough).
Then Holy One said to me:
thus judgement has come upon my people;
I am done, I can no longer stay.
And when I go, your songs will turn
to wailings, death will cover every place:

silence.


So listen, and hear this now, you
that trample on the needy,
bring to ruin the poor of the land;
you who buy up all the land,
who look at humans and see
only opportunities for sales to fill
your pockets; you who make your dollars stretch,
while shrinking the cents you throw
at the poor – do you buy
your comfort for silver bars
to hold them captive, your
piece of mind giving your pieces
of last season to Goodwill?

Listen to the Story, the story
of Holy One – I do not forget,
and I see all you have done.
This land will tremble for
your deeds, and mourning will come
to all who live here; all
shall rise like the summer mudbowl
in Queensland, be tossed about
and sink and shrink like those silted
northern floods.

On the day I leave you – for leave
I must if you continue unjust –
the sun will disappear at noon,
the earth will be dark though it is day.
You feast now, but then you will famish;
hum now, but then you will howl;
your fine clothes will matter no more,
your hair will dry and knot and fall out ...
It will be bitter mourning, as a parent
grieves a child – and you will know
what I know.

Think not that a dearth of food and water
will be the worst you will face
when I am gone: there is a famine
far worse coming for you, for you will hear
not, no more, the word of Holy One.
You will wander from desert to coast,
from rainforest to mountain, and you
will find it not, will hear it not,
no more:
the word of Holy One.