.

My Lord is Majesty (let me)

.

.

Blood in urine, the path-flight of

a plane across a low horizon. Lifting,

spinning, a dream-drop like floating.

 

The answer “no” is all I am capable of. Kiss

me, let me be my fragmented self,

burrow like a termite into tree bark,

seeking living wood, or be a beetle

resting on dewy grass long

before the heat of noon, or like a weed

straight, tall, uninhibited by the cutter’s twine.

 

Let me be the shape of clunky cluster clouds,

a berry ripe, rich and easy to eat. Let me steal into

the veins of a garden rock, follow a squirrel’s pawprints

up across electric wires. Let me speak before I know anything,

before dread comes to cave my thoughts into a knot-hard ball,

sealing me with silencing futility, sucking out

the heart-beat of magnificent, like a fish flapping

in the oxygen ether,

hooked to a string, hooked to a stick, held

in a small child’s hands. Let me have faith again

 

in spite of this crushing calamity, trust again

in the companionship of God, protector

of what keeps me sane, merge with

God on every road, every forest path

missed, where the shadows are overbearing,

and the humidity!

 

Bear me up, Jesus of my master throne,

I see the light overcome.

I feel the toil and tear of survival’s whip,

feel this death come as a swarm of wasps –

the sound of many waspy legs nearing.

 

Bear me up, be for me like the purity of a washout,

deafening the tone of insect language, turning

these horror groans of my stretcher-strapped plans

into a strange body peace –

though stung, encased, consumed, bear me up

wet-cloth soothe me, embrace me through this heart-ache,

bear me up, give me the strength to surrender

into this death, into this exhale of absolute release.

.

.