I told them I had hoped Poem by Steinar Opstad

I told them I had hoped
for a prophet
and that he would overturn the decrees
and when the prophet won
the sick would grow more sick
the healthy more healthy
and a church would no longer be needed
nor a sickhouse

I was not the sick but the prophet
and I was not the prophet
but the twofold person
who held his hands in front of him
Now and then someone stroked my arms
it was my mother and my father and they smiled
because inside my eyelids a congregation stood ready
to lay me down or lift me up