The Christian Century

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.

“An Engine against the Almighty”
—George Herbert, Prayer (1)

We wrestle, gentle
Jehovah, gentle
beast, or rather ring
bearer, keeper of dirt
and sleet under
streetlights. A kingdom,
weightless, entrusted
to the white palms
of a child. A garden
with a certain desert
distance, an angel
interference: this
late-night duel. I know
the sound of wind
as well as I know
the remnant of your
footprint. Or is that
the mark of my
knees in the dirt?