445 Religion poems

(Vienna) I Shut out the light or let it filter through These frowning aisles as penitentially As though it walked in sackcloth. Let it be Laid at the feet of all that ever grew Twisted and false, like this rococo shrine Where cupids smirk from candy clouds and where The Lord, with polished nails and perfumed hair, Performs a parody of the divine. The candles hiss; the organ-pedals storm; Writhing and dark, the columns leave the earth To find a lonelier and darker height. The church grows dingy while the human swarm Struggles against the impenitent body’s mirth. Ashes to ashes. . . . Go. . . . Shut out the light. (Hinterbrühl) II And so the light runs laughing from the town, Pulling the sun with him along the roads That shed their muddy rivers as he goads Each blade of grass the ice had flattened down. At every empty bush he stops to fling Handfuls of birds with green and yellow throats; While even the hens, uncertain of their notes, Stir rusty vowels in attempts to sing. He daubs the chestnut-tips with sudden reds And throws an olive blush on naked hills That hoped, somehow, to keep themselves in white. Who calls for sackcloth now? He leaps and spreads A carnival of color, gladly spills His blood: the resurrection—and the light.

Cleanse me of my iniquity and wash away my sins.

Who wielded the chisel at the left portal, south porch, the scene of Theo chained, naked to the waist, leaning in to the brutal hand of what looks to be an even younger boy? What man carved stone to mimic flesh as it would look inside the torture of its flensing? How he must have held the scene in his own mind, thought it back to the act itself, modeling the lines with his own limbs so he would know both how a body bends in pain, and how a hand extends the flayer’s rake.

No doubt to-morrow I will hide My face from you, my King. Let me rejoice this Sunday noon, And kneel while gray priests sing. It is not wisdom to forget. But since it is my fate Fill thou my soul with hidden wine To make this white hour great. My God, my God, this marvelous hour I am your son I know. Once in a thousand days your voice Has laid temptation low.

i.m. Marty Crickard I came to light a candle for a friend but Jesus had a really bad mustache and those were only pinpricks in his palms so I passed on. I came to light a candle for a friend but Joseph’s hands were manicured and soft as Fairy Liquid hands I could not light one there so I passed on. In the corner was a fellow with a cowled robe and a tonsure like a saucer — he palmed a young and curly blonde Adonis — so I passed on then to Benoît-Joseph Labre, a tattered man whose wide eyes blazed, he looked quite mad, had beggar’s hands, I liked him. I lit two dozen candles, didn’t pay, and nicked this book on him before I left. I did all this in honor of my matchless absent friend, whose honest calloused workman’s hands maintained the half of Belfast, and nothing’s been the same since he passed on.

Lord of wondrous workings, grant us understanding— now at the hour of closing. A chosen few are called, their eyes toward you lifting— they stand exalted in their trembling now, at the hour of closing. They pour forth their souls; erase, then, their straying— and grant them, Lord, your absolution now at the hour of closing. Be a shelter for them through all their suffering; consign them only to rejoicing now, at the hour of closing. Show them your compassion, in your justice turning on all who brought oppression to them— now at the hour of closing. Recall their fathers’ merit and count it as merit for them; renew their days as once they were, now, at the hour of closing. Call for the year of grace— the remnant flock’s returning to Oholìbah and Oholàh— now at the hour of closing.

Here, where God lives among the trees, Where birds and monks the whole day sing His praises in a pleasant ease, O heart, might we not find a home Here, after all our wandering? These gates are closed, even on Rome. Souls of the twilight wander here; Here, in the garden of that death Which was for love's sake, need we fear How sharp with bitter joy might be Love's lingering, last, longed-for breath, Shut in upon eternity?

The blessing safely lifted onto Joshua’s shoulders, Moses climbed up Mount Nebo, high above Moab. Tendons winced as he bent to retie a sandal, and haze flooded his vision, which had nothing to see (or black rock and scrub thorn only) until he stopped and said, I will wait here for the voice of the Most High. You showed him all the land— Gilead, the hills of Ephraim and Manasseh, from Judah to the western sea as far as Zoar. And said: Your eyes have seen what I promised, yet, because at Meribah-Kadesh you failed to manifest the holiness I am, you do not go in. At that distance and from the heights Moses stood and watched as the children of Israel began the westward trek. His sight strengthened and he saw each one. The mother, thin and staring, bent down to take her firstborn’s hand, who cried and then laughed. The young brothers with new beards and faces blackened by years in Sinai, strode along carrying all they had rolled up in a sheepskin. The white-haired elder and his mourning wife, whose only daughter was lost in the desert, stalked slowly forward without speaking. An orphaned girl, her cousin, and her cousin’s husband discussed it quietly and held hands. A concert of voices, murmurs, cries, laughter, rising, falling, babbling like water, the fountain of Meribah-Kadesh that sprang from a wall of rock in the desert when Moses struck it with his staff. Days of his life returned to him. One last time he saw Miriam’s serious gaze during the hours of instruction. He recalled the harp players in Pharaoh’s summer palace; white noonday and the shadow of his hand raised to strike the Egyptian overseer; Zipporah’s fear and trust when Jethro urged her forward; the brush-tree that spoke out in tongues of fire; Egypt’s plagues; blood on the doorposts for a sign; the exiles’ safe conduct across marshlands among bulrushes as seabirds called overhead; mutiny and lightning in the desert; a pillar of smoke by day, and fire by night. The moment drew near as those he was bound to and had contended with went up to a land of hills dusted with the first spring green. Sheep stopped their grazing to stare; like an intake of breath, a lull suspended the low hum hovering around hillsides in flower. His eyes filled with tears. And silver bands of sun broke from a veil of cloud overhead down to the plain of Moab, lighting the face of Joshua on one side, so that half remained in shadow. At that moment Moses was taken to his people. His body is said to be buried at Beth-Peor, yet the grave has never been found. The grave has never been found— and Joshua led the Israelites westward into Canaan.

I have nothing to recant, I am just the decanter. You, the just destroyer, have in faith become the role, recalling for those gathered the noble fallen with a prayer to his-grace-above-fire, (“Turn me, I’m burnt on that side”) St. Lawrence. Well done, I applaud. And you: Well executed. This is it. Not much else to await when our fates touch: I’ve nowhere to be but eternity, you’ve nothing to catch but the thatch. Dry on dry, we keep our wits about us

A bird flew out at the break of day From the nest where it had curled, And ere the eve the bird had set Fear on the kings of the world. The first tree it lit upon Was green with leaves unshed; The second tree it lit upon Was red with apples red; The third tree it lit upon Was barren and was brown, Save for a dead man nailed thereon On a hill above a town. That night the kings of the earth were gay And filled the cup and can; Last night the kings of the earth were chill For dread of a naked man. ‘If he speak two more words,’ they said, ‘The slave is more than the free; If he speak three more words,’ they said, ‘The stars are under the sea.’ Said the King of the East to the King of the West, I wot his frown was set, ‘Lo, let us slay him and make him as dung, It is well that the world forget.’ Said the King of the West to the King of the East, I wot his smile was dread, ‘Nay, let us slay him and make him a god, It is well that our god be dead.’ They set the young man on a hill, They nailed him to a rod; And there in darkness and in blood They made themselves a god. And the mightiest word was left unsaid, And the world had never a mark, And the strongest man of the sons of men Went dumb into the dark. Then hymns and harps of praise they brought, Incense and gold and myrrh, And they thronged above the seraphim, The poor dead carpenter. ‘Thou art the prince of all,’ they sang, ‘Ocean and earth and air.’ Then the bird flew on to the cruel cross, And hid in the dead man’s hair. ‘Thou art the son of the world.’ they cried, ` ‘Speak if our prayers be heard.’ And the brown bird stirred in the dead man’s hair And it seemed that the dead man stirred. Then a shriek went up like the world’s last cry From all nations under heaven, And a master fell before a slave And begged to be forgiven. They cowered, for dread in his wakened eyes The ancient wrath to see; And a bird flew out of the dead Christ’s hair, And lit on a lemon tree.