And now for something completely different.
I have truly enjoyed writing for this audience of friends and peers since I began a few months ago. It is strengthening to see how so many of you read with open and curious minds, with humanity and compassion, and in good faith. It makes me want to keep writing.
I’ll continue with more essayistic work soon, but for now, a departure — two poems that I think partly spring from my time spent contemplating and imagining the mundane and conversational aspects of the historical time in which Jesus lived. I often wonder (and sometimes read about) what the material details and daily life were like then, and how imagery, superstition and spiritual impulses were expressed. These poems are not about that but I believe are derived from it, simply, language that that formed around my thoughts and imaginings of that time and my inner music of my writing in the present. Santa will not appear.
Have a peaceful holiday and New Year.
I.
He sang with insolence
into what should have been silence.
He sang this song with grave resolve.
Everyone agreed that his pitch was perfect.
And a warm grace followed him.
He was funny once. And light.
But his hand cast a shadow now
when he moved it to write.
His faith demanded this happen in sleep.
In dreams in which he had no dreams.
The world in its various seas gone quiet.
Beneath it all was a girl who swam
With golden skin that poured forth sun.
And limbs of earth
and rain that refused to fall.
The spirited boy submerged himself
and without breath
watched her.
Shimmer
beneath the waves
And coming up
into the bright air
mourned her.
The memory of her body
spoke volumes.
We forget everything.
And he wept.
We learn nothing.
II.
I sat in the chair as the troops
rolled in. I wore gaberdine
& flannel. There were white
men watching me. My hair
was too long. I pretended to look
busy. Somebody took a photograph.
A deaf man sold potions and tablets
on the street below, raking it in,
his foot servant furious. A rose
then rose and walked
to another man’s desert
The whole expanse of it blooming and crowned
in thorns. A curse I put on
everything he said had failed.
But the world still turned.
We know that words,
whether spoken or sung, will
not stop war.
Or through heat and shifting
sorrow cease
with abandonment and lies.
That was the tale
as he told it.
The changes were subtle,
but real. His voice
revealed sabres and shining.
His penmanship improved noticeably
when raising his hand to God.