A Song in Parts

The Beloved

 

Mute, I was led like a lamb to the slaughter-

And the same was done to my daughter.

I was slain of love before there was a world,

When I slept dreaming in the bosom of the Father.

 

We went together over the light and living things

That would spring up from this,

our mutual delight

overflowing the cup,

poured out upon the harrowed world

We already fully knew

And loved,

Even in the pain of freedom’s full expression.

 

So my own, my beaten and bloodied son-

Come out, come here-

lying wounded, naked upon the road,

pushed to the side,

passed by,

unclean, unclaimed-

You are mine.

 I will wear your wounds.

 

I stretched forth my two bright, unbroken hands

And interwoven, the world, the words, fell out between

And time began

spun into present being.

 

The precious and the small that I loved, the drops of

Spray upon the back of the beasts and the crawling things

Unfurling gossamer wings and seeds each to their kind

And a boundary where the sea shall not pass.

 

And it was good but divided:

the dark from the light,

the waters above from the waters below,

held back for some future purpose.

 

Our longing brought us down to the dust

We pressed our mouth to the tender soil

and breathed our children into flame.

 

In the beginning, they would come to us.

 

The Audience

 

We came out from insufferable freedom,

barring the gate to that unspeakable garden.

 

We cannot be naked, undefended

tasting everything but

of good or evil knowing nothing.

 

Let us make god in our own image.

Let us circle god with the spinning mechanical angels

Whose rimmed unblinking eyes will count out

All our many offensives continually

And he will wage war for us

Upon those white and pestilent horses.

 

We will build a tower to divide

The lower to build, the higher to see

And god on top, where the prophets speak

In the seventh story room.

 

And the banner of god will be

White and gold and red as blood,

Marching as an infantry.

 

Let them make the bricks now,

Let the starving ones press them into mold,

One after another after another

And all for the glorious city of god.

 

Hand me the iron pen and the whitened skin

And I will write this script into stone.

 

The Girl

 

I woke with the taste of grapes in my mouth

I had been dreaming of something-

The iron creaking of the swing set

The slam of the screen door

 

I woke and it was gone.

 

I was called up those tower stairs,

past all those pictures of the starving saints murdered before me

past all those poor lambs called up to heaven on the treadmill

and that starred lady giving birth before the dragon,

pregnant

repugnant

 

terrible, bright and shining,

marching on before

 

I rose in the crowd to clap my hands for the Prophet

And all his holy gods.

 

Hosanna! Said the crumbling cornerstone

Where I fell and hit my head trying to see in

All the precious stones had been pried out

Years ago.

 

Like bullet holes in holy places, where the Prophet

paced threadbare the boards and

the bed where he lay him down to sleep tonight,

under the seven story room where the faithful

prayed all day and night-

 

Deliver us, O lord, from your great and terrible might!

 

I went up the stairs and up the stairs and up the stairs

into the holy room

And stood before the banister that looked down over

those rows of souls who’d bowed their head before

 

The almighty warriors of prayer,

Blue-bound,

red letter

up to the standard

Sending god himself out

To wrestle with the wily devil in his stony strongholds

 

Amen! They cried and again they cried amen.

 

And all the women wept and raised up holy hands and hide your head

For fear of those dreadful angels they can’t see through the lace

The holes there that hold in your head.

 

And the grit that hurts your knees as you bow down, bow down

Before that holy warfare they wrestle with, red faced and sweating

And shouting out the devil’s name

 

In some far off, dark powerful place that is between the plastic seats

And the white globed lights in the ceiling
Counted out in hours of boredom

Between the air you breathe and the room pressing down

And the sharp stones of the building cut into shape-

 

Like warriors trampling down the vineyards

The sweet, tender vineyard, the little grapes and the foxes

That peak through the leaves, the little foxes

 

Underneath the hooves of those terrible white horses

All cut to pieces and flayed apart and hung on the wall of those stairs

That I went up and up into the airs of that place

 

that breathed down through

those bullet holes like tongues of light that shine down through

those stones pressing down like one great stone

a gravestone

throw the starving under sea to lie down

and take it.

 

The Beloved

 

In the beginning, my lover was taught the law

Precept upon precept

line after line

Following her unmerciful tutor.

 

But as she grew older, I coaxed her closer

And leaning over, I whispered her name.

 

Passing over the tender grass

I rose up in the wind and kissed her wondering mouth.

 

She didn’t know it was me, but she turned to follow after.

 

My lover, she woke one morning to the black trees

Streaming past the blurred window and

Knew the emptiness in her heart

One she thought would take her straight

To hell if she didn't repent.

 

Though I rode beside her on the jolting seat,

She saw me through the white bound window

Of her child’s bible

Too tender to be real, too vague for everyday use.

 

So she climbed the tower to make amends

Seven stories she stepped up

The creaking wood, crying out

The pain of their history worn into them.

She evoked all the deepest magic she knew,

She called up all the sacred words

Over and over she flipped through the dry

Sheaves, underlining, whispering

Searching for me in the numbered verses.

 

But I waited.

I waited for the silence to rise up-

And the words fell away.

 

She stood before

The bared and wounded plain of her soul

The emptiness more terrifying to her than hell.

 

Crippled, she bent forward on the spindled chair

And cried out to me without official form

Without disguise, without sanction,

Or correct interpretation.

 

And bending over her with wings of fire,

I poured out to her

Love

like honeyed oil that ran down

All her hair, soothing her burning eyes

And running down to fingertips and toes

Overflowing her soul,

Tipping her small scales over

into uncontainable

Joy.

 

Free,

she went running down

Her feet only skimming
the steps

And burst out into the

newly made night,

laid with dew,

canopied in shadow

and spinning around her.

 

She danced with me for one hour

Then she put me away,

Respectfully releasing me

For the more pressing and important duties

She imagined must be waiting.

I let her sleep a little while longer.

Thereafter, she knew two gods.

 

In her youth, my lover stood before

The congregation

Their hungry eyes bright, they watched her stumble.

Drawn up, because she could not undo that tie that bound us together.

She gave herself over to a father I did not know,

Faithful to her faulty teaching

Seeing me between the lines.

 

She was afraid, but she called out my name

And pulled me down

Face to face with her.

 

Her throat moving under the light,

lifted, bared-

 

I poured into her and caused her

To speak the words that I was speaking to her.

We heard and spoke them together.

 

She loved me with all her heart and soul and strength

And she gave herself over to the monster that drove

Her with cords of anger,

Stripping flesh from spirit

Bleaching out the soul and

Leaving her bones tied

together with printed paper.

 

And all this, I suffered with her, until she fell so far

That false god wouldn’t claim her.

 

I caught her.

 

The Girl

 

I woke with the taste of wind in my mouth.

 

Each step my own bone,

Feeling with my hands

As I climbed higher.

 

Beloved bricks,

Formed with the palms of my hands,

Pressed down

The mortar beaten,

Pressed down

Laid each upon the other

Pressed down

and slit open on the alter.

 

So close to this cannibal god

with the blinding teeth

his bloodied, unbearable hands

reaching,

passing his children through

the fire.

 

I stumbled and everything came falling with me,

Every alter I had set up-

 

Pretty little virgin vanities,

Lovely trinkets whispering around the mirror

Petty vows spoken hollowly,

Snap shot pictures, paper charts,

Simple mysteries and prayer lists

Like grocery receipts

All stuffed in satin lined boxes

Of my surface childhood.

 

The unbroken skin,

The ivory tower

The white neck

That god wanted

Behind glass.

 

It came down in a shower of bone shards

And glitter.

The pigs rooted through it, where I lay

Where I found myself when I woke up
a backslider,
such a crushing disappointment
such a waste
such a weak girl after all-

 

to wake up, throw up in that black painted room

With the velvet painting.

 

What’s your name, little girl,

What’s your name?

 

But I didn’t know.

 

He taught me some bitter words, that first husband,

Who incarcerated shame

Into my own flesh and bones

That wouldn’t take him in.

It was all my fault.

 

And that first god had vomited me out, my pass key wouldn’t

Work

My vagina was shut down, closed down for

Bad business and without that

Little flap of skin

God couldn’t see me,

I’d slipped under the holy radar

Unwanted, unwrapped

It didn’t matter it was a marriage license he took me under

It was wrong, all wrong and now I was

The poked chocolate in the box someone found but

There was no cherry.

I was unripe like small potatoes,

Crying in that attic room, screaming out without my voice

To get off me stop that right now I can’t take

One more blinding awful

minute

But I took it and I took it and I took it

Silently, as I should,

Was taught to

Yield to

Pain.

 

The Audience

 

Let us lead the virgins out one by one

For sale.

Come on girls, come on out,

In pretty little shirts and skirts.

 

Who is the highest bidder here?

 

Who has won the right to claim their bride

By upright study and the prayer of clean hands

A blind white soul and pure sheets-

These girls don’t come cheap.

 

You have to suffer for this marriage

Of the mind, interlocked, yoked

With the correct bolts.

 

It’s all in the right equipment.

 

Have you prayed, have you

Run it by the prophet’s men?

 

If not, you’ll watch her hair relax out of curls just out of reach;

Not yours yet, but if you ask

Very pretty please

You might take her out just once

 

Before you take stock of all her value,

Off the open market, where there are no

exchanges but things do accrue.

 

Come girls, back to bed and locked up tight

And sleep you sweet upon these barren beds

Wait for another day,

Wait and wait and wait

 

And wait.

Here is one that fell out the fold, bruised,

Cut open, revealed.

We’ll sew a lovely letter upon her dress and

Let her gingerly among the rest.

 

But don’t listen close, her story’s not for you-

Where could you put her story?
Your hearts have no pockets.

 

The Girl

 

I woke to the wilderness.

Some sweepings here, caught up in corners,

Blown around.

I had to run after myself, trying to snatch

Something here and there

Is an opinion, newly formed and lightly held

And there

Is a memory I’ll polish clean.

 

I carried a grab bag and sometimes I’d sit down

To puzzle through it-

Why this?

 

god-

him I put in the back seat, solicitous. I said

Do unto me what you must but you’re breaking my bones

And you don’t want me anymore, anyway,

Without my saccharine, Kool-Aid colored cherry topping

my black bound rule book.

 

Let’s be honest:

You’re not telling me to go left or right here,

At the stop sign, where I’m

Constantly yielding.

I don’t know which way to go and

You’re not helping.

 

Go tend your lambs, I’ll handle the dogs.

I’m used to it.

 

At the very bottom of the bag I carried with me

Memories like hope kept in the back of the box,

After everything else had been let loose.

 

Sometimes I turned back and saw Him there,

That One I couldn’t speak or carve out

Perplexed, I tried shooing Him away.

 

“Close your eyes, You shouldn’t see this,” I told Him,

More than once.

 

But He just kept on following after, showing up

To the terrible party, closing the doors after the guests had left

And sweeping up with me,
Sleeping at my side on the floor.

 

I said, I’ll never speak a word of this to anyone-

This grace is too cheap to be believed-

Ridiculous.

Where His sense of cause and effect?

Why won’t He

Hit me?

 

Sometimes I would peak out of the lattice of my heart

And glimpse Him, as I had known Him

 

And I knew I was His, through and through

But I wasn’t living it righteously enough

To prove it was true.

 

I would remember that I had stood before

Heaven laid open, right through the ceiling

and felt the eyes of God turn to me

Moved by me

As I had been moved by Him, drawn up to stand there

Singing something I had yet to learn.

 

So I made a door to keep Him safe from myself

And sometimes I would open the door and check on Him.

 

“I love You,” I would say. “I’m Your girl,
Your bruised and battered girl.

And You know the fire of pain that burns at the hinges of my heart.

There’s no need for us to speak.

But I can’t come to You just yet.

I can’t take it.

But You know where I am.”

 

And He would wait!

I would close the door on Him, and He would wait!

 

What manner of God is this?

Whose image is He making manifest?

 

This is an untaught God, older than humanity,

Living, not written.

 

His freedom is dizzying

and born of love and held of love and taught of love

He knows nothing and can do nothing

but what His loving Father showed Him.

What father? This Father the created universe cannot possibly contain.

 

Where is there room for this love that died

To be with each of us in our hells

Before they ever held us in their arms?

 

The Audience

 

When one has fallen, we will mark them off the list.

This is only fair and fair warning to those who remain

For the full wages of war.

 

Things don’t divide evenly and we make our bread

By the sweat of our face and we make our bed

To sleep in it.

 

If one falls, the rest circle the wagons and recite

One hundred and twenty two poems

And one psalm

The other books are burned in the bonfire

To keep us warm.

 

This is the way we have always done

And learned it and we will pass it on to the little ones

Watching, whipped and learning.

 

Each in their place, as god ordained it

The men to suffer honorably, empty and desperate.

The women to follow after, silent, serving, both

In bed and out but never sexuality, that wouldn’t be fit.

But pleasing yes, in every way, to only one.

 

To the rest, she is a snare and must keep her dress loose

Like a tent to catch the air, for the men’s imaginations

Are constantly flamed up

At her expense and so she must beware.

 

But also bewitching in bed, by the book:

Here’s thirty tips and some soothing metaphor.

Have fun. Not too much. Like that, but not this way.

What way? Don’t ask me. I don’t have the vocabulary.

 

But who could argue with missionaries? That’s all I’m saying.

 

Listen, here’s the crux of it:

You’re meant to be the bride of god

And he wants a gutted woman,

Scooped right out and genderless,

Also with no feeling, certainly no personality,

But white and gold streaming like scarfs

From your open, soundless mouth.

 

No body, no limbs, nothing but laundered robe,

Starched stiffened and possibly scented with something

Like lavender or rose water, but let’s not get carried away.

 

This is god’s bride we’re talking about here; perfection,

The tip top, the best of the best.

A militant bride, a tramping, sword wielding woman.

 

The virgin multitude melted into one faceless mob

Of righteous white that will

Fall down slowly out of the sky, all those beautiful buildings

That god will take in his arms and cherish tenderly.

The cubic feet, the angled wall,

Here a window, there a window: precious windows

That god adores! See how he loves the bricks

And rocks it close at night.

 

We love this city because god loves this city;

We are this city because we’ve bricked it up

By every bloody sacrifice of self, by every heart torn

Out by the roots, by every child laid across our knees

And beaten, by every desire denied, by every

Emotion bleached by a life time of holy days

Given to god and by wearing skirts.

 

This is how we know god loves us.

 

And when he walks past our empty, mortared form

When we meet with him at a distance in the gilded temple

And intone his name,

When we take our place at the table,

Up high and close enough to feel

His hot and holy breath-

It will all be worth it then-

 

By the banks of that golden river, over looking

The anguish of the fallen, forever heaped outside

The jacinth gate, their weeping and gnashing of

Teeth soft music to our meat.

 

The Girl

 

I woke in the garden.

 

I had wandered in by accident.

 

I thought it was a state park, or

Some quiet estuary, where the river

Flows down into something greater

And mingles in peaceful eddies

Before being drawn out to deeper

Tides beyond.

 

I said, I’ll sit here a while and

Build my simple life in the shade of this tree

And trail my fingers over

This painted park bench that feels

So oddly familiar.

 

For a long time, I sat there alone-

The woods were good company.

 

But they reminded me-

A glimpse of something caught long ago,

A battered postcard of a country

I thought I had no more hope of reaching.

I pulled it out and looked at it again.

 

I remembered Him.

 

If I opened the door, could I live with Him?

 

I still carried the tread of the stairs

in the sturdy muscles of my thighs.

 

Some days I still carried the bricks

Around on my back, the corners

Cutting even in memory.

 

So I tried to find Him in the built

Cathedrals of contemporary worship,

Sitting on the thin cushions, listening

To the ringing of the microphone

In my ear.

 

I found Him there, sometimes,

Standing while the world fell away

But I was always ashamed of

my trembling hands, my voice

slightly off key, lifting, yearning-

too naked for the church pew.

 

The park bench suited me better.

 

The Beloved

 

I looked down, I saw my lover

Sitting in full flower and wandering

In search of me.

 

Coming close to the door and then

Timidly back again, her eyes lifting up

Swiftly, uncertain.

 

My heart melted down into rivulets at the sight,

Flooding the garden with silver pools

And streams running brightly,

Gilding all the leaves, running along

The edge and dropping with a quiet

Music tapping out the depth of that

Space under the cedars,

Green and growing, all tended

By my hand and called by name

Where she lived, in the midst of that

Verdant life, unknowing, seeing me

In every turn, my handiwork made

For her to sleep in, one part of

All that life I loved.

 

I saw her

Pressing her ear to the panels

And pulling away again, fingertips

Lingering once

More leaning in,

Knowing my name and not finding

Voice enough to say it.

 

So I came down to her.

 

The Audience

 

Oh, let us have fog machines and light shows!

Strike up the band, the electric guitar

The wide white windows flickering in their

Passing images, telling everyone the words

So no one has to sing their own.

 

Oh, bring us skits and plays and coffee bars!

 

Oh, let us have missions and money plates

And lovely drapes and carpets rich and full.

 

Let us lift the stage up into higher view our leader

Clearly now to adore

And imitate.

 

Let us discuss his gestures, inflections, delightful voice

That shudders through the sound system

And the clutter of paper programs,

Hopes, diagrams to God

And five step programs

And small, small groups.

 

Now everyone come up here and meet with god

Here on the stairs.

Come closer, my little lambs,

My flock, come to the leader now, follow the leader

Now, he’s pointing to where god stands

Put two and two together.

 

You don’t find him? That’s your fault-

Search your heart, myopic, look closer

There’s some stain there, barf it up, bulimic

You skin and bone believer, scrape yourself

Clean or god will never sit with you right here

Before the alter, the polished wooden pulpit

At the Sunday show.

 

You have the wrong spirit, I’ll put my hands

All over you and shout you clean, you unbeliever!

Come to god! Come, he loves you,

Come, he wants to eat you.

 

He’ll break your habits off you, do you want success?

Some money in your back account?

 

Then give it to me first,

Or you’re cursed.

Oh, I’m sorry, was that cruel?

 

You know I love you and all your children-

We have programs for them too, you know.

Let us in the room with them.

 

The Girl

 

I woke and He was there.

 

My breath caught,

I couldn’t help it.

 

He was standing in the crowd

Of people looking right through Him,

Demanding proof

The righteous mark, the sign and seal.

 

They wanted to know who His father was.

 

“This man can’t be from god,

The law has clearly written it-

We know where this crazy man comes from

and that’s not it.

Look, it’s right here in

verse seventy four.”

 

They were looking straight into the face of God

And didn’t see Him.

 

God stood before them in flesh and blood

And they didn’t know Him.

 

They had written the name of God all over them,

But they couldn’t see Him through the pages

They adored- oh the pages of life! Oh the word of god,

Sweetly written on their behalf and interpreted correctly

By them, for their own sakes.

 

They shall go to bed with their interpretation

and sleep safe tonight.

 

I was beneath their notice, but I knew Him,

Standing so still in the midst of them,

I knew His quiet voice, so certain,

His love coming out in grief,

The sadness all through Him.

 

He stretched out His hands,

 

-and I couldn’t stand it,

I couldn’t stand there-

 

I ran right to Him.

 

And laughing, He caught me up close in His arms.

I didn’t know if it was

His voice or mine that was speaking,

Saying the same thing,

So softly, over and over.

 

After that, He lived with me in the garden.

 

It was hard at first,

To unlearn the religious

Rules of etiquette

Which He did not seem

Entirely interested in.

 

I expected Him to dominate,

But He was always so curious,

Reading over my shoulder,

Interested, listening, so ready to speak

Sometimes I couldn’t believe Him.

 

“Hush now, give me a chance to prepare myself

Adequately to hear Your voice,” I said, once.

 

But I was just speaking, He pointed out, puzzled.

 

When I went to bed, He lay down with me.

Shocked, I sat up straight and scolded Him.

 

“Don’t You know who You are?” I asked Him.

“Where’s the proper distance?

Your spouse is a city.”

 

Eventually, I learned to relax into His embrace

And we stayed up nights, whispering.

 

He was full of scars.

The first time I threw my arms around His back,

I felt

Gruesome, inhuman gouges running

Like ridges all through the flesh

That couldn’t be real.

 

I was plunged into terror at this

Thing that I held in the dark

Until I stopped by one thought-

 

That He had been scourged by whip laced with iron and bone.

He had been lashed to the pole and flogged.

 

It was scar tissue I’d felt under my fingertips.

 

I lay there trembling

In the arms of the Son of God.

 

At first, I tried doing everything

Possible to please Him,

Resurrecting bricks and presenting them,

All dusted off and polished.

 

Talking all the time to Him, a constant stream

Of chatter, hoping the words would hold Him-

 

Sacrificing parts of myself, hoping

He’d like the smell of in the air.

 

His response was not always all that I’d expected.

He took the bricks and looked tenderly at me

Out of those limpid eyes, so light, laughing, loving

 

He made garden paths with them, sunk

Into the earth, where the moss could grow over-

Everything was damp in that place, running with water.

We were wet all the time.

 

He’d take me on His lap and assure me

It wasn’t sacrifice He wanted.

 

He had to say the same things

again and again to me.

patiently explaining

 

It wasn’t my behavior that kept Him there,

It wasn’t my conversation

or my conviction,

right doctrine

purity rings

or high investment yields

that held Him

none of those things,

nothing like that-

 

I was inherently pleasing to Him,

Because I was His in the beginning,

His own creation,

Loved long before I’d been born.

 

I couldn’t do anything to make it

More or less real, but I could certainly

trip myself up, trying to unlearn my

first and most bitter lessons.

 

When I bent to worship at His feet,

He pulled me up into His arms.

 

When I hurt myself with harsh judgments,

He stopped my mouth with His kiss.

 

When I passionately declared that

His glorious robe covered all the earth,

That He led out the stars with His hand,

He bent and whispered into my ear-

I am meek and lowly of heart.

 

When I told Him I wasn’t worthy,

He took my face in His hands and said

That was His judgment to make.

 

I told Him He was the gardener-

He said, I am your husband.

 

I told Him He was my God-

He said, and you’re My girl.

 

I told Him miserably, remember when?

He said, I don’t.

 

I learned to lean into Him all the time

No matter what came up or how I felt.

 

It was like feeling

All the blood come running

Back into my hand after

It had fallen completely asleep,

At first cold and unwieldy,

Something not attached to me

And then

Shocking almost to the point of pain

And then warm and nimble,

Full of sensation.

 

The Beloved

 

We played like children in that garden,

Running, leaping over the streams and

Squatting down to see something closer,

To touch lightly before it lifted away

Into the hazy air falling
Down through bands of gold.


Curled up, sunk into the moss,

We slept together under

Banks of fern, under the beeches,

The little foxes peeking out,

Badgers and deer leaping through the shadows,

The air full of the scent of lilies and lilacs,

Green grass and slow moving water,

Cinnamon, saffron and myrrh.

 

The stars tilted past

Sometimes the moon came out and

We would greet her.

 

Each day I taught my lover-

She was such a quick student,

Tumbling ahead of her lessons.

Taking tight hold of my robe

Whenever something frightened her.

 

Which was often, as I unwound

the layers of lies

That had constricted her spirit.

 

Overshadowing her, I would point out

The missing piece, the love to which her fear

Had left her blind.

Her fear was sometimes so crippling

She couldn’t even hear,

Her eyes wide, white and staring.

 

I took her in my arms and rocked her,

Singing to her,

My voice dissolving that phantom world

Risen up around her.

She woke from terror to me.

I put her hand in my scars,

So she would know

She had never been alone

In that tower, trembling under the ceiling

Locked into law and paying the price.

 

Just one lock of her hair, slipping

Over her shoulder, as she knelt

Unaware by the river, was enough to

Undo me.

 

She was altogether lovely

I saw no fault in her.

 

I had her dressed in linen,

I crowned her with grace.

I tipped her face to mine and kissed her willing mouth.

 

The Girl

 

I woke with the taste of grapes in my mouth,

Sweet, sun ripened and bloomed over,

And sticky purple fat figs and red apples

That hid in the leaves brushed back

In the groves of that garden where we played.

 

One day our play took us down to that verdant

Edge where the rooks wheel in the sky

And the blackberries ripen in great sprays of tangle.

I paused, lifting up on my toes in the grass,

Caught by some low, disturbing murmur.

 

When He came, I caught hold of Him.

He let me go down to the edge, leading me

Through a narrow path, pushing through the briar.

 

We stepped out onto a burning plain,

Full of harried activities, the cries and shouts

Of labors and whips and chanting,

Scattered with jagged pieces of broken pottery,

Miserable huts and windowless houses built

Over the gutters of the unclean.

 

I caught up His wounded hand tight

Leaned in toward Him;

His face was all lined with sorrow and pain.

 

“Oh my sweetheart, who are they?” I whispered.

“And what are they doing, down there on the plain?"

 

He rested his face in my hair,

He whispered into my ear,

Those are my children. Go down

And we’ll invite them to come.

 

So I went down among them,

The dust in my eyes and caking my clothes.

I knelt by the first person I found.

 

He was bone thin and weary and pressing straw into bricks.

He was weeping, the tears grooved deep

Into the dust on his face,

And he ground his teeth in agony as he slaved at his work.

 

“Why don’t you come into the garden,” I asked him.

“Come in out of the sun. Aren’t you thirsty?

There’s a river there.”

 

“There?” he asked, his eyes wide with terror. “I can’t; I’m a dog

And must press the bricks into mold, for the city of god.”

 

He shooed me away and went back to his work.

 

I went to the next and she said, “I can’t; I’m a sorceress

And must press the bricks into mold, for the city of god,
and I won't listen to your heresy."

 

I went to the next and he said, “I can’t, I’m an adulterer

And must press the bricks into mold, for the city of god."

 

“What god?” I asked him, in bewilderment.
“Can’t you see He’s right here?”

 

The man laughed. “That’s no god.

That just the Nazarene,

unclean from touching lepers

beloved by prostitutes and children.

He’s nothing but a mad man.”

 

The man pointed his dusty finger at the sky.

 

“God lives up above, in the holy of holies,

and we are building a tower to reach him;

the prophet will interpret his unsearchable will

by sacrifice and fire

and we will go to war for him.”

 

The next, she sobbed, “I can’t! I can’t! I’m a murderer!”

Her sobbing shook right through her.

I put my arm around her shoulders
and bent to her ear.

 

“So was I," I whispered.
"I remember that desolation.
But listen!
That isn’t who we really are.

I know where there’s a river-

you can wash off all this dust;
it's hiding who you really are.”

 

“I can’t,” she insisted, trembling.
"I can't-
they would never let me in.”

 

“Those gates are never closed-
Anyone who thirsts goes through."

She was confused, but full of hope,

her callused hands paused in the work.


“But what about this city of god?" she asked.

"What about this tower we’re making to reach him?"


I could clearly see the longing,

Hiding shy behind her fear.
I knew it, because I had once worn it too.
 

I leaned in toward her, my eyes lit up
with the pleasure of what I knew.


“Listen, I’ll tell you a secret," I said-

 

“You are His city. He lives with you.”