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,

my soul has wandered through strange lands

and arid places seeking you.

I have looked over heaven and through hills

for you, but you would not appear.

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 I 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 overran its shores,

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 weak,

why were you not my will, my motivation?

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?

When I lost my will to love where were you?

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 long-drawn 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 burning in the sun that sets

over open ocean.

…(continue)

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:

I would go up in a whirlwind,

I would be burned in the flame

that purifies but destroys 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.