The Word in Focus with Dr Larry Taylor

One weighed down with thick chains

The other grasping a massive bunch of colored balloons

Standing at Hokmah’s threshold checking 

Addresses, GPS coördinates, door codes

Anticipating the down-to-earth farm-woman

Welcoming them in and lifting from one the

Weighty burden of chains, commenting as she

Does that they might find a use for them around the

Farm, perhaps to tow something with a tractor,

And then, between checking the pies in the oven and

The roast slow cooking, she takes the balloons,

Dividing them and telling of her plan to 

Distribute them one each to the children.

Relieved of weighty depression, negative

Self-talk and low self-esteem; relieved of

Inflated fantasies of greatness, yet able to

Accept a single red balloon in celebration,

They melted and merged into 

One, ordinary, normal, human being.