A voice cries in the wilderness.
Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight.
A God of compassion and tenderness.
And for him to come again , we wait.

They were baptised by him in the river.
Baptised with water, he will baptise with the Holy Spirit.
I once too stood by this river .
Once a place of hope and merit.

I wondered if I too could bathe, a spiritual  immersion.
The Jordan here is so enticing, like a stream back home,  narrow.
But now it is only a place of division.
A place of staggering heat  and sorrow.

But still you feel his holy presence.
An indefinable echo of the past and his essence.

……..

A faint past echo
Of a holy baptism
And we still hear it

…….

See Mark 1 : 1-8