246 Spiritual poems

‘This is the key which was given by the angel Michael to Pali, and by Pali to Moses. If “thou canst read it, then shalt thou understand the words of men, … the whistling of birds, the language of date-trees, the unity of hearts, ... nay, even the thoughts of the rains.”’ Gleanings after the Talmud Ah! could I read Schemhammphorasch, The wondrous keynote of the world, What voices could I always hear From tempests, with their black wings furled, That on the sudden west winds steer, And, muttering low their awful song, Or pealing through the mountains strong, Robe all the skies with sheeted fire; That pour from heaven a rushing river, That bid the hill-tops bow and quiver, Mad with some fierce and wild desire. The dreadful anthem of the wind, That sweeps through forests as a plow, That lays the greensward heaped below, Would chant its meaning to my mind, And I could tell the tale to man In words that burn and glow with splendor; Then should the whole wide sky surrender Its hidden voice, its wondrous plan, Asleep since earliest time began; And all my soul, most like a blaze That burns the branches whence it springeth, Should flame to heaven in mightier lays Than any mortal poet singeth, If I could read Schemhammphorasch. If I could read Schemhammphorasch, When little birds are softly singing, Or twitter from their greenwood nests, Where safe and still the mother rests; Or else, upon the glad wind springing, Send up their tender morning song; Then should I know their secret blisses, The thrill of life and love they feel When summer’s sun their bright heads kisses, Or summer’s winds about them steal. Or, listening to the early blossoms That are so fleeting and so fair, With perfume sighing from their bosoms Its incense on the gracious air, I think that I should hear a prayer So sweet, so patient, and so lowly, That mortal words most pure and rare Would scarce unveil its meaning holy. From forests whence the murmurous leaves Breathe their content in rustling quiver, Or droop when any rain-wind grieves, Or where some broad and brimming river O’erflowing to the mighty sea, Sings the proud joy of destiny, The glad acclaim of life and breath; The courage of confronted death; Ah! what a rapturous, glorious song Should seize with bliss this earthly throng, If I could read Schemhammphorasch! If I could read Schemhammphorasch, Then should I know the souls of men, Too deep for any other ken; I could translate the silent speech Of glittering eye and knotted brow, Though still the wily tongue might teach A different script with voice and vow. The blood that runs in traitorous veins; The breath that gasps with hope or fear; The stifled sigh, the hidden tear; The death-pang of immortal pains, That hide their mortal agony, Would have their own low voice for me; Their tale of hate and misery, Their sob of passion and despair, Their sacred love, their frantic prayer. My soul would be the listening priest To hear confession far and near, And woe and want from first to least Would shriek its utterance in my ear. Ah, could I bear to live and hear These cries that heaven itself might flee, These terrors heaven alone may see, If I could read Schemhammphorasch? If I could read Schemhammphorasch, My brain would burn with such a fire As lights the awful cherubim; My heart would burst with woe and ire, My flesh would shrivel and expire; Yea! God himself grow far and dim. I cannot hold the boundless sea In one small chalice lent to me; I cannot grasp the starry sky In one weak hand, and bid it lie Where I would have a canopy; I cannot hate and love together; I cannot poise the heavy world, Or hear its hiss through chaos hurled, Or stay the falling of a feather. No, not if Michael came once more, Standing upon the sea and shore, And held his right hand down to me, That I that awful word might see, And learn to read its lesson dread. My soul in dust would bow her head, Mine eyes would close, my lips would say, ‘Oh, Master! take thy gift away: Leave me to live my little day In peace and trust while yet I may. For could I live, or love, or pray, If I could read Schemhammphorasch?’

Give me a church made entirely of salt. Let the walls hiss and smoke when I return to shore. I ask for the grace of a new freckle on my cheek, the lift of blue and my mother’s soapy skin to greet me. Hide me in a room with no windows. Never let me see the dolphins leaping into commas for this water-prayer rising like a host of sky lanterns into the inky evening. Let them hang in the sky until they vanish at the edge of the constellations — the heroes and animals too busy and bright to notice.

Lo, in my soul there lies a hidden lake, High in the mountains, fed by rain and snow, The sudden thundering avalanche divine, And the bright waters’ everlasting flow, Far from the highways’ dusty glare and heat. Dearer it is and holier, for Christ’s sake, Than his own windy lake in Palestine, For there the little boats put out to sea Without him, and no fisher hears his call, Yea, on the desolate shores of Galilee No man again shall see his shadow fall. Yet here the very voice of the one Light Haunts with sharp ecstasy each little wind That stirs still waters on a moonlit night, And sings through high trees growing in the mind, And makes a gentle rustling in the wheat. . . . Yea, in the white dawn on this happy shore, With the lake water washing at his feet, He stands alive and radiant evermore, Whose presence makes the very East wind kind, And turns to heaven the soul’s green-lit retreat.

To invent the alef-beit, decipher the grammar of crows, read a tangle of bare branches with vowels of the last leaves scrawling their jittery speech on the sky’s pale page. Choose a beginning. See what God yields and dirt cedes when tines disturb fescue, vetch, and sage, when your hand dips grain from a sack, scattering it among engraved furrows. Beyond the hill, a plume of dust where oxen track the hours. Does God lead or follow or scout? To answer, count to one again and again: a red maple leaf and a yellow maple leaf that wind rifles and rain shines until they let go, blazing their scripted nothingness on air.

I thought I was growing wings— it was a cocoon. I thought, now is the time to step into the fire— it was deep water. Eschatology is a word I learned as a child: the study of Last Things; facing my mirror—no longer young, the news—always of death, the dogs—rising from sleep and clamoring and howling, howling, nevertheless I see for a moment that's not it: it is the First Things. Word after word floats through the glass. Towards me.

The man was white, grey and pale brown, the colorless colors of a used-up earth where water has sunk down, sunk down so low and risen so far above the grey-white pale-brown heaven and shrunk so far within itself that it will not come back. What can moisten a shriveled water, or can a clod of ash regain colors from the identical howl of a white powder sun? Not in me, he said, ever again, but in the street with engine and worker petals, not papery, more fragile than that, there will be color. My eye will reach color, all colors, every one together, which no one will see in me ever again. I turned to the sky then and it was all one blue, the color of seeing, and yet was as many blues, as subtle, as tones of stubble in the most sunken cheek.

Send your spirit to revive our corpses, and ripple the longed-for land again. The crops come from you; you’re good to all— and always return to restore what has been.

Oh Raphael. Guardian angel. In love and crime all things move in sevens. seven compartments in the heart. the seven elaborate temptations. seven devils cast from Mary Magdalene whore of Christ. the seven marvelous voyages of Sinbad. sin/bad. And the number seven branded forever on the forehead of Cain. The first inspired man. The father of desire and murder. But his was not the first ecstasy. Consider his mother. Eve's was the crime of curiosity. As the saying goes: it killed the pussy. One bad apple spoiled the whole shot. But be sure it was no apple. An apple looks like an ass. It's fags' fruit. It must have been a tomato. Or better yet. A mango. She bit. Must we blame her. abuse her. poor sweet bitch. perhaps there's more to the story. think of Satan as some stud. maybe her knees were open. satan snakes between them. they open wider snakes up her thighs rubs against her for a while more than the tree of knowledge was about to be eaten...she shudders her first shudder pleasure pleasure garden was she sorry are we ever girls was she a good lay god only knows

No more hangings, no more gas chambers. No one allowed to remain in the center of the labyrinth, guarding their dna from the world, from the future. No more contemplation, no more waste. Everyone leaning toward paradise. Shields down and the word enemy will pass from memory. You are my kind.

you put this pen in my hand and you take the pen from my hand. the night before the full moon the moon seems full. what is missing is a dark hungry sickle, the sliver of shadow eating us up inside. after the mountains breathe their mint-and-sorrow green against the long summer sky, they burst into hot october laughter, lighting the horizon with citrus, rust, and blood. you put this knife in my hand. we pull. we meet as oceans come together, heaving against and clinging across our salt watery boundary. we approach endlessly like two rails of one track, tied in a parallel that promises our eyes to merge, someplace far off in the distance. you put this feather in my palm. my fingers close around flight.