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Oh God At the Last Trump
I. What is it that my soul
What is it that my soul desires?
Is it the seed, the wheat, the bread?
The seed dies, the wheat is ground,
the bread is chosen to be broken.
What is it that my soul desires,
the longing of my blood that suffers hate?
My soul has looked for you,
it has wandered narrow ways
and arid places seeking you.
I have searched the heaven and the hills
for signs which you would not reveal.
Oh, when will you come to sate my longing?
II. Can we find the things
Can we find the things that have been lost?
Can we say to the God that we seek:
Where do you hide?
Why have you gone away?
Did you think we would not note your absence?
You who made the world and what is in it —
earth, sea, sky, tree, man, woman, all mammals
— where were you when ocean spewed its waves,
when it swallowed one I loved where were you?
When I looked for love to help me swim
why were you not my float, my life preserver?
When the rich made money and overran the poor,
when the projects soured where were you?
When I looked for love to help the 'hood,
why were you not my grant, my public works?
Where were you when Dosha’s life drained out,
when Desean stole his first Intrepid where were you?
When I looked for love to invite them in,
why were you not my door, my furnished house?
Where were you when Seven sold his drugs,
when Fox could find no job where were you?
When I looked for love to bring them work,
why were you not my HR desk, their resume?
Here is a list, God, we say, here
are the things your absence has cost us.
We know the world is empty, broken.
Why do you make us heal ourselves?
You’ve left us to the whims of fate
and we resent this. Come on, soothe
our hurt and seal our souls for you.
III. Sometimes the world
Sometimes the world flames
sometimes I flame,
and I look up to the sky
full of fire
and kiss the hand that made me,
the hand that I bite and
that feeds me and that I love.
IV. This is the world I know
This is the world I know
this is not the world I know:
hell and heaven,
fire and ice;
the lines of the compass,
the dusty winds —
(four points to the possible,
celebration of earth for our feet to find,
celebration of sky for our wings);
the tug of Paradise;
the world above,
the world below,
and me strung up between.
Perhaps I overdramatize.
We wake and live the best we know.
No, we wake and live.
This is how I feel
this is not how I feel,
a peaceful man but now in pieces,
parts of me parceled out to fate:
those winds, the compass points;
the earth, the sky; the tug of dust
from which I came and which
will take me back in turn.
Celebrate the turn of the needle,
align with the magnetic pole.
This is salvation this
is how it’s done.
V. I have seen my God
I have seen my God in the faces of the poor;
I have seen his form imprinted in the valleys
below the mountains which my feet have scaled.
I have felt his eyes alight behind the sun that sets
over open ocean; I have seen the ocean bow to him.
I have heard his voice drift down the subway steps
from battered lips that trumpet tunes for change.
I have smelled him in the soil, freshly turned,
of a soybean field and on a tall tomato stalk.
The smokes of burning rubbish heaps have shaped
him as they climbed; his music flows from mountain
streams and from the slicks of city rivers.
I have seen his lightning strike along the line
of hills that’s north of town; I have watched
his cloudbursts cleanse a quiet canyon floor.
I have felt him within mosques and inside temples,
atop cathedrals and in the open woods.
I have sensed his spirit in a desert and on
a crowded city corner I have known his touch
and known his voice; I believe.
VI. At times I have betrayed
At times I have betrayed
the universal hope within me borne,
claimless to the human
I would claim; at others
lived with little thought; knew
the path yet went a wayward way.
I have seen the legless man
who begs for bread and looked aside;
I have looked into the orphan’s life
and lived my own.
I have quoted without question
lines of solely human doctrine.
I have heard the wealthy damn the weak
and swallowed my retort.
Have I been a rebel? No;
I cannot claim so pure a debt.
This credit only will I sign:
that when it came to payback time
I swiped my self.
VI. Oh God, at the last trump
Oh God, at the last trump take me, too,
your everlasting mercy scalding
me.
I would not be
a stranger in your house:
Send me up in whirlwind spire,
burn me in the pyre
that purifies but destroyeth not.
Say
that my wood and hay will leave
some base of precious stones.
Tell Moses let me through;
stay with me and be my lord.
The Arc of the Fall
Mansehra, Pakistan
This morning as I walked
I saw a curious sight: bricks
thrown by unseen hands
from a pile on the ground
to a pile on the roof, or what
perhaps would be a second floor,
of a half-built building,
each brick rising with grace
into the blue air at the top
of the compound wall, tumbling
slightly in a shortened parabola,
one after the other, to land
with a clink on the concrete above.
His body hidden behind a wall,
I had to imagine the hands
of the thrower, their clarity
of purpose, their sure goodwill
as they chose a brick, weighed
it, then lofted it high
with practiced ease.
I feel like that brick
sometimes, thrown by unseen hand –
of God, perhaps, or of my will –
to a higher plane, landing amongst
other bricks chipped from the arc
of the fall, and who can know
whether the wall we build
will be straight or crooked,
will last or crumble.
Digging Up the Body
I had a body buried in my backyard.
A gravedigger told me so. He came at dead
of night, whistling at my window. We
crept downhill into the creek’s floodplain,
past the ruined shed and underneath
the tall pear tree. I slipped on rotten fruit.
His spade, I saw, was worn from much use.
The digging point was gone, the handle loose
where it joined the shovel head. Around
his neck there hung a leather thong. I heard
an eighteen wheeler hit the highway’s ruts,
the distant, haunting whistle of a train.
I sensed, rather than saw, a low, bright
planet in the sky. And then, beneath
an arched mulberry tree, in grasses late-
summer high, he marked a spot and dug.
Spurred by strange anticipation, I dropped
to knees and helped with hands as best I could.
It was a deep grave, and our hands turned dirt
for what seemed a parade of nights, though really it
took only an hour or two. He slowed, then,
and ordered me out of the hole. With utmost care,
he uncovered a tiny body, an infant,
wrapped in cloth and delivered it up
to me. Unwinding the linen strips, I saw
a boy, uncircumcised and of uncertain
race, and I did not find a belly button.
“How long has this been buried here?” I asked
the gravedigger. “Thirty years and more,”
he said. Then he took the leather thong
and draped it round the child’s neck, revealing
a locket which, when opened, held two strands
of hair. “Eat,” he said to me. I did,
and though they tasted separately of honey
together they were bitter. I heard an owl
hoot against the darkness. Then he gave
some cock-and-bull story, a rural lass,
a city lad, their secret, ill-fated love.
But I preferred to think that this must be,
in some sense, my unborn body by some miracle
preserved whole, and here I was, giving
myself some sort of rebirth.
When I Get Over
When I get over I will see
my mother I
will see Ms. Kate
I did not know her
in this night but we
will hug when I
get over.
In the morning I’ll
get over I
will cross that River
Jordan go through
water woods and fire
get my crown when I
get over.
Angel wings will carry
me whirlwind lift
to safer shores
where I’ll meet Ms.
Kate, my mother, there to part
no nevermore when I
get over.
I will meet my shining
Jesus jump into
those arms of joy he’ll
say couldn’t you have come
a little sooner then
we’ll laugh when I
get over.
Won’t you meet me
in that sunset
we will lap
the outer walls stroll
those streets till
past our bedtime
when I get over.
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