Mustard Seed

Keith Sanford

Reclining on the cushions
of an easy chair.
TV in black and white,
like the shirt he wears.
Images from Watts
in nineteen-sixty-five,
stir a kind of fear,
of changes to arrive.

But, a mustard seed was sown so many years ago
Will it ever change? Will it ever grow?

He wonders why the people
sing a sour note,
when just a year before
they got a right to vote.
Guess they’re never satisfied,
always wanting more.
So, anchored in the past,
he declares a holy war.

But, a mustard seed was sown so many years ago
Will it ever change? Will it ever grow?

They want to change tradition,
how it’s always been.
Can they now change the rules,
that set the laws of sin?
Don’t ancient books proclaim,
that laws are fixed in time?
Frozen, like a rock,
they are hard as steel divine.

But, a mustard seed was sown so many years ago
Will it ever change? Will it ever grow?