The Language as Virgin Purpose; or, Illumination
"Begin
at the beginning,
Brother."
This cry rings out across the
hot wood-pew place of this
summer Sunday, this
Amen! this
Glory! this
Hallelujah!
And with these most lowly
I am,
all these words in my
ears holding a perfect purpose
at tongue's long distance
from me.
Where are Your most-golden trumpets, Lord?
I ask; the angels gathered in the sky?
The fish in great numbers, the day in midst of night?
Where, in
this sun-white place,
this house of hollow voices,
am I?
And in a whisper
of leaved branches
against the nearest wall:
the words are why we're here.
---
Speak, oh God,
speak --
form me
in the roll of your tongue,
in the sounding of me
out;
stirred from dissonance
to being,
spoken,
spoken from and
for.
---
Here,
here in the filth of
this house, Father,
boards cracking long down the walls,
floors scarred and rubbed smooth
with a thousand feet
and knees
worn,
find me,
and hear:
the light is going down outside this
old building;
the sun is nearing the horizon
and the white
clapboard white
of this body will glow,
gold and yellow,
in the last light --
for a moment,
a long moment.
We do not light it.
Tell me I'm clean,
and I will be clean.
Tell me I'm clean,
and I will be clean.
Tell me I'm clean,
and I will be clean --
Hosanna.
KMC 10-11-06
2 comments:
I love the way you are not sure whether you want God to speak or to listen. I also love the lines,
"Where are Your most-golden trumpets, Lord?
I ask; the angels gathered in the sky?
The fish in great numbers, the day in midst of night?"
I know that yearning.
This is likely to reveal something about my taste we recognize already, but after rereading that last stanza tonight, I totally dig that--the repetition is so perfect--it really catches what brd's talking about there--that is the yearning we all feel and at which we wonder (wonder in the most metaphysical sense, in this case...)
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