445 Religion poems

I kening through Astronomy Divine The Worlds bright Battlement, wherein I spy A Golden Path my Pensill cannot line, From that bright Throne unto my Threshold ly. And while my puzzled thoughts about it pore I finde the Bread of Life in't at my doore. When that this Bird of Paradise put in This Wicker Cage (my Corps) to tweedle praise Had peckt the Fruite forbad: and so did fling Away its Food; and lost its golden dayes; It fell into Celestiall Famine sore: And never could attain a morsell more. Alas! alas! Poore Bird, what wilt thou doe? The Creatures field no food for Souls e're gave. And if thou knock at Angells dores they show An Empty Barrell: they no soul bread have. Alas! Poore Bird, the Worlds White Loafe is done And cannot yield thee here the smallest Crumb. In this sad state, Gods Tender Bowells run Out streams of Grace: And he to end all strife The Purest Wheate in Heaven, his deare-dear Son Grinds, and kneads up into this Bread of Life. Which Bread of Life from Heaven down came and stands Disht on thy Table up by Angells Hands. Did God mould up this Bread in Heaven, and bake, Which from his Table came, and to thine goeth? Doth he bespeake thee thus, This Soule Bread take. Come Eate thy fill of this thy Gods White Loafe? Its Food too fine for Angells, yet come, take And Eate thy fill. Its Heavens Sugar Cake. What Grace is this knead in this Loafe? This thing Souls are but petty things it to admire. Yee Angells, help: This fill would to the brim Heav'ns whelm'd-down Chrystall meele Bowle, yea and higher. This Bread of Life dropt in thy mouth, doth Cry. Eate, Eate me, Soul, and thou shalt never dy.

I have never needed God as a personal savior in my practical life syllogisms about His existence were never music to my ears but always seemed vague missing a dimension although I didn’t know how to say this. Neither a philosophical God nor a biblical God suddenly appears among His creations amid revelations of wisdom in Jerusalem, His city. And certainly not in disclosures of pious inner principles and also not among poets, unfortunately. Astronomical bodies at night and mystical landscapes in Sharafat for example and Beit Jala bear His between-the-lines existence, His inklings. The expression of an ultra-Orthodox man’s eyes in Mea She’arim — this too — and even the purifying surrender of a sly and seasoned merchant, irreligious now in Geula, when you reproach him. Something like “Reprove a wise man and he will love you.” And you, when you cleanse yourself of anxious constraints about your environment after taking hash or grass. Springs of purity whose origins you’re unaware of bubble in coursing blood, in glands, in milk and some paradisiacal primeval revelation, and your almost subconscious innerness your being suddenly revealed — Is this clear enough to you, heredity? Genes? Or existential uniqueness, a maintained infancy that knocks you out with a sense of a refreshing genesis. Everything becomes clear in a great light. You shed revulsion and resistance, a great love germinates within you — this gloriousness this wonder comprised of absolutes of — objective truth, complete justice, decency honor internalized honesty and complex wisdom enhanced down to the last detail. Ho, complete, divine purity. Suddenly you polish a syllogism of your own for decisive proof of His existence: God is an idea — ideas don’t have material existence but they exist nonetheless so God exists definitively as the spirit of an idea, the biblical assertion “He has no body and no bodily form” is clear to me now as an exegesis that sits well with philosophy. Translated from the Hebrew

I heard an Angel singing When the day was springing Mercy Pity Peace Is the worlds release Thus he sung all day Over the new mown hay Till the sun went down And haycocks looked brown I heard a Devil curse Over the heath & the furze Mercy could be no more If there was nobody poor And pity no more could be If all were as happy as we At his curse the sun went down And the heavens gave a frown Down pourd the heavy rain Over the new reapd grain And Miseries increase Is Mercy Pity Peace

As a child I put my finger in the fire to become a saint. As a teenager every day I would knock my head against the wall. As a young girl I went out through a window of a garret to the roof in order to jump. As a woman I had lice all over my body. They cracked when I was ironing my sweater. I waited sixty minutes to be executed. I was hungry for six years. Then I bore a child, they were carving me without putting me to sleep. Then a thunderbolt killed me three times and I had to rise from the dead three times without anyone’s help. Now I am resting after three resurrections.

I know that He exists. Somewhere – in silence – He has hid his rare life From our gross eyes. ’Tis an instant’s play – ’Tis a fond Ambush – Just to make Bliss Earn her own surprise! But – should the play Prove piercing earnest – Should the glee – glaze – In Death’s – stiff – stare – Would not the fun Look too expensive! Would not the jest – Have crawled too far!

I look for you early, my rock and my refuge, offering you worship morning and night; before your vastness I come confused and afraid, for you see the thoughts of my heart. What could the heart and tongue compose, or spirit’s strength within me to suit you? But song soothes you and so I’ll give praise to your being as long as your breath-in-me moves.

I saw a chapel all of gold That none did dare to enter in And many weeping stood without Weeping mourning worshipping I saw a serpent rise between The white pillars of the door And he forcd & forcd & forcd Down the golden hinges tore And along the pavement sweet Set with pearls and rubies bright All his slimy length he drew Till upon the altar white Vomiting his poison out On the bread & on the wine So I turnd into a sty And laid me down among the swine

I syng of a mayden That is makeles; Kyng of alle kynges To here Sone sche ches. He cam also stylle There his moder was As dew in Aprylle That fallyt on the gras; He cam also stylle To his moderes bowr As dew in Aprille That fallyt on the flour; He cam also stylle There his moder lay As dew in Aprille That fallyt on the spray; Moder and maydyn Was never non but sche; Wel may swych a lady Godes moder be.

Wheel me down to the shore where the lighthouse was abandoned and the moon tolls in the rafters. Let me hear the wind paging through the trees and see the stars flaring out, one by one, like the forgotten faces of the dead. I was never able to pray, but let me inscribe my name in the book of waves and then stare into the dome of a sky that never ends and see my voice sail into the night.

Mary who mattered to me, gone or asleep among fruits, spilled in ash, in dust, I did not leave you. Even now I can't keep from composing you, limbs & blue cloak & soft hands. I sleep to the sound of your name, I say there is no Mary except the word Mary, no trace on the dust of my pillowslip. I only dream of your ankles brushed by dark violets, of honeybees above you murmuring into a crown. Antique queen, the night dreams on: here are the pears I have washed for you, here the heavy-winged doves, asleep by the hyacinths. Here I am, having bathed carefully in the syllables of your name, in the air and the sea of them, the sharp scent of their sea foam. What is the matter with me? Mary, what word, what dust can I look behind? I carried you a long way into my mirror, believing you would carry me back out. Mary, I am still for you, I am still a numbness for you.