After William Carlos Williams,

and Walter Lewis Stevenson

And what shall I write you

                Of star song at morning

Or moonlight at sea

                Of love in the evening, or afternoon

Or come back to bed and be with me.

                Put aside the book, the tablet, the screen

Lay by the thought of breakfast, or supper or lunch

                And what the children are doing.

And be not in a hurry to go on, to the next

                Or the thing after that, or tomorrow.

Or the trip to the city to buy and to sell

                And make money.

Make love for us, instead, o loveliest of spouses.

For the roses on your trellis

                Are dying and the spectral singing of the moon

Tell only of the shortness of time and the day.

                And the fleeting moments

To dress in white, and anoint with fragrant oil

                And share a glass of wine,

A bit of bread, and time, and times and time again.

                Let not your ear be small. 

               

We love in flesh, we children of this world

Created thus, and placed here by our God for some days

But only the hand-breadth of a breath.

You see, somewhere, it’s April in Paris for an evening

And that is all, and we go to our eternal dwelling.

And to silence, where there is neither seeing, nor memory, nor singing. 

And heaven, the old priests will say, is for

                The pure worship of God, without the defilement of women.

Why then did God make women, and the love of them, and

                Place desire in the heart and limbs of man? 

The sea teems with living creatures, too small to see,

Too large to walk upon the earth, and the greater to

Multiply consumes the other, in obedience to the Command,

                The first and primate Directive, woven tightly into the

Warp and woof of all life, of any life - "Go forth, be fruitful, multiply and fill empty

                Space," with living, in all its variety and beauty.

But this is common, and so vulgar, and we wish to be left alone

                In our clean and sacred cloister, to be waited on

In bodily wants, by the halt, the lame, the deaf and mute

                Who will for us suck up dust like Roomba robots. 

Where then is the way, and what are the time and times again

                For love, when the Lord God looks and sees that

Breasts are formed, and the child is no longer, and is ready for love.

                Do not speak to us, Creator, in such vulgar terms

Of Love and Betrayal, and make a metaphor of Your love for us as though

                You were a desert sheikh, living in a tent on Saudi sands

And seeing Your young ward bloom with lithe grace, and full roundness

                As a woman is.  And Your place, and rule, and blessing

Is to become her Lover, and make promises of faithfulness and provision;

                Goat hair panels, dates and wine, and cheese and a donkey. 

That is not our people, not our past, and not in the paleness of our skin

                Or hair.  Who are You then, Thou terrible ravisher of innocence? 

You raise up, and cast down.  You bless and withhold.  You scatter seed

                And reap a hundredfold, or a thousand, and then fill the barren plains

With sand, or spread salt seas across the surface of the earth.

 

We rise and fall like the waves, and come and go on tides

As the moon, barren and pale as death, orbits the only rock spinning round

The sun, so adorned in blue and green and white, giving life by the

Ellipsis of her path. 

We despair of smallness, and marvel at the complexity of the eye

                And enjoy, delighting in touch and taste and sight.

And desire. We could wish to be wise, but young enough to leap upon the mountains

                Passing over the crags like a gazelle.

Without fear, and defiant of death, and the crumbling ledge. 

                So Lord God, we will leap into Your arms, with a thrill and laugh,

Like a little daughter to her father standing, arms up, in the water.  

And like a child, when we are hungry, we wish to eat,

                And when thirsty, we wish to drink,

And when soiled, we wish to be clean

                And when we desire love, we wish to be satisfied.

But we do not know enough of when

                To go out, or come in. 

Do not say to me then, love,

                Go and be warm, and well filled, and turn to go on

Your busy and merry way. 

But only what is meet for our smallness.

                What You give.  And we will wait for You and hope

As only love and faith do,

                In life, through death, through thirst and deprivation.

Let the bones speak, the dry bones you have scattered,

                Crushed bones, empty and hollow.

Put marrow in the core, clothe them with flesh again,

Breath upon them Breath and Word,

Let blood course, and lungs fill.

And even when the Old Order is passed, fill again with

Life, a sea, a land, and a sky, through and through,

And leave not the courses of heaven empty of lights, near or far,

                Thought the Light of the City Eternal is all that is required. 

O, Love, do not let the space of stars be absent the sounds of whale song

                Or the sighs of lovers in one another’s arms.    

February 14, 2014