God knows I’m trying to be a good monk
who simplifies his life for higher aims,
seeks first advancing the kingdom of God,
God’s righteousness to fill his mind and limb.
But I am full of strange and mad desire
to procreate my thoughts with other thoughts
and beget other selves in poetry,
in art, in music, in my history.
Surely my every word is wind to you
that comes from sealed lips and twisted tongue.
What difference does an empire of thought
and sweeping logic make to the one Word?
What good does this desire to create
bring about in a swiftly fading land?
You render every beauty obsolete
and worldly wisdom burns under your feet.
What time is there to render to my art?
Soon I will die, soon your kingdom will come,
and whether I will meet you there or not,
and you break like the dawn upon this world,
the skyscrapers will vanish in the light.
Each painting crafted all immaculate,
revered as beyond genius by all men
will melt like wax, will come to nothing then.
But still the anger burns within my bones.
It is the fire of the voice of God
that burned upon the guardian angel’s sword.
It is the same that blackened Gomorrah
and adorned blinding chariots heavenward bound.
This is a truth that I cannot deny:
That I am made of the same stuff as you
and you have made me to make and to breathe
my life, while it lasts, into everything.
‘Be followers of God, as dear children.’
And let me follow till my workings cease,
the blood slows in my veins and every joint
creaks in a groaning, fleeting gasp of death.
I will carry your image to the Grave
as you went once, and rise from there renewed
on the last day when all creation sings,
both man and nature madly circling.
Wed Aug 13, 2014 8:01 pm