445 Religion poems

My mother is obsessed with reading about Jesus these days. I see books piled by her bed, most of them borrowed from my library: novels, handbooks, sectarian polemics, writers coming to blows. Sometimes when I’m passing by her room she calls on me to step between them and resolve their disputes. (A little while ago I came to the aid of a historian called Kamal Salibi, whose forehead had been split open by a Catholic stone.) What a diligent reader she is when she’s searching for Jesus, this woman I never failed to disappoint: I was not martyred in the first intifada, nor in the second, nor in the third. And just between you and me, I won’t be martyred in any future intifada either, nor will 
I be killed by some booby-trapped stork. As she reads, her orthodox imagination crucifies me with every page.... while I do nothing but supply it with more books and nails.

This is that blessed Mary, pre-elect God's Virgin. Gone is a great while, and she Dwelt young in Nazareth of Galilee. Unto God's will she brought devout respect, Profound simplicity of intellect, And supreme patience. From her mother's knee Faithful and hopeful; wise in charity; Strong in grave peace; in pity circumspect. So held she through her girlhood; as it were An angel-water'd lily, that near God Grows and is quiet. Till, one dawn at home, She woke in her white bed, and had no fear At all,—yet wept till sunshine, and felt aw'd: Because the fulness of the time was come.

I I’ve felt undeserving. I’ve made myself ill with the glory, in the unleavened garden disgorged the lies and scared away with a stick a snake. What made me cover that which I could not have? I’ve grieved and walked in catacombs, I’ve felt undeserving. I’ve made myself ill with the glory. Even the falling leaves gesture their renunciation. I disgorge the lies and abhor the serpent’s hiss. I remember seasons, things I bring from far away, and grieve. I walk in catacombs. In gardens now, by the stone walls, sunlight closes, the falling leaves gesture their renunciation. I remember being in a field touching a man’s body. I remember seasons, things I bring from far away and things that hold their breath for shame. His skin was soft as a girl’s and he closed his eyes. I placed apple petals on his eyelids; we were lying in a field and I touched his body. Then there were clouds, an uncanny silence, as when in a green place the air holds its breath for shame. What made me covet what I could not have? Ill with the power and glory, a thrashing in my chest, I remember the unleavened gardens, petals falling singly, the yellow snake disgorging lies. II I’ve grieved and walked in catacombs. I’ve felt undeserving. I’ve made myself ill with the glory, power and glory-- a thrashing in my rib cage. I’ve gone into the unleavened spring garden, disgorged the lies, and scared away with a stick a snake. I’ve grieved and walked in catacombs. What made me cover that which I could not have? I’ve felt undeserving. In this bright land that changes from yellow to green and back to yellow, I remember seasons, things I bring with me from far away and things that hold their breath as if for shame. I’ve made myself ill with the power and glory. I’ve gone into the unleavened garden and startled a yellow snake disgorging lies. A thrashing in my rib cage. What made me cover what I could not have? I remember   seasons. Things that hold their breath for shame. Things I bring with me from far away. III I’ve made myself ill with the power and glory. I’ve made myself ill with the power and glory.

If faith is a tree that sorrow grows and women, repentant or not, are swamps, a man who comes for solace here will be up to his knees and slow getting out. A name can turn on anyone. But say that a woman washes the dust from a stranger’s feet and sits quite dry-eyed in front of her mirror at night. The candle flame moves with her breath, as does the hand of the painter, who sees in the flame his chance for virtuosity. She lets him leave her shoulder bare. Bedlam’s distilled from a Mary too, St. Mary’s of Bethlehem, shelter for all the afflicted and weak of mind. The donors conceived of as magi no doubt. The mad and the newborn serve equally well for show. A whore with a heart, the rich with a conscience, the keepers of language and hospitals badly embarrassed at times by their charge. The mirror refuses the candle, you see. And tears on another’s behalf are not the mirrors he’s pleased to regard. Who loves his ironies buxom and grave must hate the foolish water of her eyes.

(FOR HANUKKAH) Light the first of eight tonight— the farthest candle to the right. Light the first and second, too, when tomorrow's day is through. Then light three, and then light four— every dusk one candle more Till all eight burn bright and high, honoring a day gone by When the Temple was restored, rescued from the Syrian lord, And an eight-day feast proclaimed— The Festival of Lights—well named To celebrate the joyous day when we regained the right to pray to our one God in our own way.

O you gods, you long-limbed animals, you astride the sea and you unhammocked in the cyprus grove and you with your hair full of horses, please. My thoughts have turned from the savor of plums to the merits of pity—touch and interrupt me, chasten me with waking, humble me for wonder again. Seed god and husk god, god of the open palm, you know me, you know my mettle. See, my wrists are small. O you, with glass-colored wind at your call and you, whose voice is soft as a turned page, whose voice unrolls paper, whose voice returns air to its forms, send me a word for faith that also means his thrum,his coax and surge and her soft hollow, please—friend gods, lend me a word that means what I would ask him for so when he says: You give it all away, I can say: I am not sorry. I sing.

Tom, will you let me love you in your restaurant? I will let you make me a sandwich of your invention and I will eat it and call it a carolyn sandwich. Then you will kiss my lips and taste the mayonnaise and that is how you shall love me in my restaurant Tom, will you come to my empty beige apartment and help me set up my daybed? Yes, and I will put the screws in loosely so that when we move on it, later, it will rock like a cradle and then you will know you are my baby Tom, I am sitting on my dirt bike on the deck. Will you come out from the kitchen and watch the people with me? Yes, and then we will race to your bedroom. I will win and we will tangle up on your comforter while the sweat rains from our stomachs and foreheads Tom, the stars are sitting in tonight like gumball gems in a little girl’s jewelry box. Later can we walk to the duck pond? Yes, and we can even go the long way past the jungle gym. I will push you on the swing, but promise me you’ll hold tight. If you fall I might disappear Tom, can we make a baby together? I want to be a big pregnant woman with a loved face and give you a squalling red daughter. No, but I will come inside you and you will be my daughter Tom, will you stay the night with me and sleep so close that we are one person? No, but I will lie down on your sheets and taste you. There will be feathers of you on my tongue and then I will never forget you Tom, when we are in line at the convenience store can I put my hands in your back pockets and my lips and nose in your baseball shirt and feel the crook of your shoulder blade? No, but later you can lie against me and almost touch me and when I go I will leave my shirt for you to sleep in so that always at night you will be pressed up against the thought of me Tom, if I weep and want to wait until you need me will you promise that someday you will need me? No, but I will sit in silence while you rage, you can knock the chairs down any mountain. I will always be the same and you will always wait Tom, will you climb on top of the dumpster and steal the sun for me? It’s just hanging there and I want it. No, it will burn my fingers. No one can have the sun: it’s on loan from God. But I will draw a picture of it and send it to you from Richmond and then you can smooth out the paper and you will have a piece of me as well as the sun Tom, it’s so hot here, and I think I’m being born. Will you come back from Richmond and baptise me with sex and cool water? I will come back from Richmond. I will smooth the damp spiky hairs from the back of your neck and then I will lick the salt off it. Then I will leave Tom, Richmond is so far away. How will I know how you love me? I have left you. That is how you will know

After the offending bit is popped out these tiny stitches on your neck are exquisite. Lips of the slit don’t speak the way you think they should, break into stupid song, blow kisses at the doctor. Some piece that kept insisting on itself will spend a few weeks in a jar on holiday with strangers, stained and diced and separated neatly from its secrets. You can only wait, reading your book about the sex lives of the saints, the lance that pierced and then pulled slowly out of Saint Teresa’s heart. A slice is venerated in Milan, they say, an arm in Lisbon, a single breast in Rome; but her heart’s enthroned behind the convent walls at Avila. Pink under glass, it wears a tiny crown.

Not for their ice-pick eyes, their weeping willow hair, and their clenched fists beating at heaven. Not for their warnings, predictions of doom. But what they promised. I don’t care if their beards are mildewed, and the ladders are broken. Let them go on picking the wormy fruit. Let the one with the yoke around his neck climb out of the cistern. Let them come down from the heights in their radiant despair like the Sankei Juko dancers descending on ropes, down from these hills to the earth of their first existence. Let them follow the track we’ve cut on the sides of mountains into the desert, and stumble again through the great rift, littered with bones and the walls of cities. Let them sift through the ashes with their burned hands. Let them tell us what will come after.

all my desire is here before you, whether or not I speak of it: I'd seek your favor, for an instant, then die— if only you would grant my wish. I'd place my spirit in your hand, then sleep—and in that sleep find sweetness. I wander from you—and die alive; the closer I cling—I live to die. How to approach I still don't know, nor on what words I might rely. Instruct me, Lord: advise and guide me. Free me from my prison of lies. Teach me while I can bear the affliction— do not, Lord, despise my plea; before I've become my own burden and the little I am weighs on me, and against my will, I give in as worms eat bones that weary of me. I'll come to the place my forefathers reached, and by their place of rest find rest. Earth's back to me is foreign; my one true home is in its dust. Till now my youth has done what it would: When will I provide for myself? The world He placed in my heart has kept me from tending to my end and after. How could I come to serve my Lord, when I am still desire's prisoner? How could I ask for a place on high, when I know the worm will be my sister? How at that end could my heart be glad, when I do not know what death will bring? Day after day and night after night reduce the flesh upon me to nothing. Into the winds they'll scatter my spirit. To dust they'll return the little remaining. What can I say—with desire my enemy, from boyhood till now pursuing me: What is Time to me but your Will? If you're not with me, what will I be? I stand bereft of any virtue: only your justice and mercy shield me. But why should I speak, or even aspire? Lord, before you is all my desire.