Excavating the sky
I
I would excavate the sky of clouds
to know You, Yahweh. Yahweh,
my nails are black with soil;
I am rummaging for Your holy light.
Yahweh, thunder, storm-deity,
I no longer fear You. I have spoken
the unspeakable name: Yahweh.
II
Once, You placed sweet thorns
in my leg and in my groin
to make me weak, to bring me
near to You. Now, as an open fridge
in an abandoned lot,
my earth is empty of Your Spirit. Now,
Your silence is absurd as wreckage
and my body is empty of Your Spirit.
III
Each morning, I rise like
the wrestling Jacob, running
through parking lots. I pray,
“Break-open my counting brain;
make me Your Holiest fool.
What blessed psych ward
must they leadeth me to . . .”
IV
Aquinas, broken, in the Lux Aeterna;
Blake seeing God through his window;
Ginsberg in his East Village flat,
trapping the Archangel of the Soul.
I walk into my future; no vision in my pocket.
V
But this winter night, my feet touch
chilled cement in honor
of firm gravity. Near the porch,
a girl invites me to the economy
of tenderness. I run a bath where
dreams rise like lavender steam
above my skull. In my room,
I punch in letters, mixing words
to bring out sparks. And it is You, Yahweh.
