It only takes a spark to get a fire going.
—Kurt Kaiser
Ye must be
and I wast
Born again.
Hier stehe moi.
But childbirth,
Either time,
Can be a mess
Of meconium:
Ever witness
Jack Chick pen-
And-ink a pope?
I have and four
Decades out
I still need
The Third
Person to be
Azaleas profess their own theology
teaching how to pronounce
the name of God—gashed wounds
opening into radiance. Far more
transfiguring than rote words
mouthed by stale breaths.
Here in this asphalt of sorrows
they gather in celebration,
the parameters of rainbows,
collecting the awe of blue
and rose winks from heaven’s wide sky
all the earth a domed nave.
They are gulls and herons,
pelicans and bitterns
roosting in earth’s roots,
His lectures that he likes best
Usually concern Camus.
Each year, he does La Peste,
Which wasn’t always true.
“A parable to be read
By a world itself absurd:
First rats, then people, dead . . .
The cause is never cured . . .
“Despair comes in, even seems
To push the envelope
Hard. But the book’s deep themes
Are human love and hope
On the willows there
We hung up our lyres
—Psalm 137
I bought it when I was seventeen along the streets of Amman,
instrument store smelling like pine, humidifiers belching steam.
We the travelling horde funnel into a serpentine
of supplicants, step forth one by one toward the ritual
scrutiny of identity. Who are we, really, each of us?
We drop our collective gaze, divest ourselves
of worldly worth, watches, shoes, dust of the earth,
the three ounces that can’t contain the distillation
of our sins, all offered into bins. I look to the woman
in TSA array, note her name. Her countenance
is both stern and saintly.
“Truth!” said Pilate. “What does that mean?”
—John 18:38
(after Salvador Dali’s The Ascension of Christ, 1958)
When he levitated toward the sunflower sun
Christ’s toes were perfect. Not a hint of hallux
varus or valgus, not a speck of fungus. His soles
were filthy, of course, like ours. He’d been out
strolling for miles. And we stood stupid. Waved
like he was going on safari or an Aegean cruise.
Still wearing the little loincloth. Nothing else
to weigh him down. No ballast. Hands clutching
everyone, everything, invisible zero G baggage.
I like to swim out till I can’t swim more
Until it’s hard to get my breath and in gasping have work to do
Get back to shore
I don’t want to tell you about the girl
Lying abed, my head beside hers
On the white pillow eyes white she said I have not prayed
I have barely ever done that I said don’t worry I have done that for you
I have included you in all the days of my life
All days have been good for praying though it’s hard to believe
That’s all God wants