Though you have eyes, do you not see? And though you have ears, do you not hear? Don’t you remember,
question piles on question
each trampling the previous
such a cacophony of questions
there is no time or space
to open the smallest responsequestion by question
we grow smaller to smallest
we don’t even remember
the first question
much less it antecedentquestion added to question
measures growing anger
by now surely
Fishing 101 would be complete
yet here we arebreath added to questions
finally begins to soothe
and nuclear questions
give way to basics
twelve seven one
The last question is a pivot. Remembrance can stand on its own and demand its own verse.
On one hand it completes the list of questions by bringing us back to the question of the recent feeding in the wilderness, rather than getting hung up on the jump to a leavening application.
On the other hand it is a lead-in statement for the next verses that cast back to the feeding of 4,000 to see if the Twelve can get back on track with their analysis of an availability of abundance.
Question after question has already been asked. Finally it comes down to a question of volition. Will we apply ourselves to real world experience or recast everything to our own easiest sorting out of meaning?
To remember (palin) is to return to a previous time that it might be reconnected with this present moment. At question is how far back we can or need go. We can just check out the most recent antecedent or even track back as far back as Mark’s first verse, “the beginning of good news…”.
Does “good news” begin with remembering Isaiah and Malachi (1:2–3) or Baptizer John (1:4–9) or a water dove (1:10–11)? If it is particularly about feeding, what about 1:12–13 that takes place in a wilderness with attending (feeding?) angels. This good news is of an availability of more than might be expected, of such an enoughness that there are baskets of leftovers to be picked up.
Remembering recharges previous experiences that they might inform our present time and open us for a variant that will again surprise us into graced and graceful living beyond mere expectation.