In the Dead Sea   In the shadow of Masada, times rife with trouble, here we are, bobbing like babies in water that pierces like a knife,   that finds all the fresh hurts, old wounds. They say these waters are healing. They say that we are pilgrims here, where mystics came to pray,   here, where our mud-slathered bodies float free of our sinfulness, baptized in the life- giving waters of Jordan — the Dead Sea.     © Michael Fleming Brattleboro, Vermont February 2016