Poems from “Jesus Christ the Son of God”

There is a moment,
A flicker between the ember and the ash
Caught in the dropping of an eyelash,
A spot both now and then,
Yet neither now nor then,
Nor soon to be.

                           A gap

In the continuum of space where spirit and body are one,
Where life is a breath of wind
Playing over the soul, a shadow of light
Moving across the void,
Where man is a poet’s harp played by the wind.

There is a catch-breath moment,
A brief flash when two eyes meet,
Or think they meet,
When distant memories collide
In the lacy veils of the mind and we’re shown inside
Where the self-evident world finds
The less evident self
And fades from view
Suddenly losing the form of reality.
In such a moment where life flickers
God is,
Man is,
Creation is,
And even I may become I AM.

The sea winds drive the surge
Against the shore
Wearing the time-sifted Dust away,
Until only the Rock shall remain
Bemantled in emerald and pearl.
For only the Rock shall remain
Where the Light flashes gold in the wind
And the sea shines emerald and pearl.

¹Who is this God of Moses?
I don’t believe I know of this one.
There are so many gods these days.
I should have thought religion
To be a simpler thing.
My son, tell me of this new God
You’re always speaking of.
There are so many.
Tell me, have you seen this God?
No, no, of course not.
No one ever sees the gods.
They are always of the invisible.
It must be an awkward life, to be sure—that of a god.
Always so indefinite.
And this Moses?
Is he like the others, half starved and unwashed?
I should have been a prophet,
Were I not, shall we say,
So amply incorporated.
It seems that one cannot be a saint these days
Unless he is half starved.
I am thinking that on that account
Hell shall be more sociable than Heaven.
They tell me this new God
Speaks from burning bushes
And pillars of smoke and fire.
He is a bit dramatic, don’t you think?
And is it true this God has no Temple?
And no Temple, uh, virgins?
How terribly barbaric.
I should prefer Isis, myself,
Were this body not so very old, heh, heh, heh.
I am sorry my son.—I did not mean . . .
I am an old man and sometimes very foolish.
You say he calls Himself the God of Israel.
Well, where has He been all these years?
Where was He when they took your mother
As an offering for the temple of Love?
Is a man supposed to wait all his life for God?
Another god, my life has been wasted chasing
After the gods.
No, you go on with this Moses.
I am too old for a new god.
I do not know this one.
Yet when you speak His name . . .
Eh! I am a dottering old man.
Still, His name is like an echo
Sounding somewhere within me,
Deep within me. And I tremble.
No, no, you go on
I shall die here along with the older gods.
I have created them. We shall die together.
Go, go with Moses, leave me!
My son, offer a dove for an old man,
An old man too old for this new God.

Gray shadows slide quietly over the sea
And a cold wind shatters the waters below,
The waters smoothing the black Rocks along the shore.
Suddenly the shadows part
And Light streams through the sky
Striking the sea and bursting
Into a million lambent fires,
Earth-bound stars flashing in the spindrift.
Shimmering in the shaft of Light
A single Gull hovers on the wind,
Soars out, up and poised,
Then flick-flashing gold, white
He drops.
A million times more lovely
His footprint in the sand.

We were a grumbling lot
Gathered in the Inn that night.
I don’t think there was a room to be had
In all of Bethlehem.
Aye, we blessed old Caesar
                                                  and damned his hide.
I left my ship waiting the tide and hurried home.
I must have kicked every stone in the road
In honor of his majesty.
We had just settled down when he came in
Looking for a room for his bride.
She was a wee thing and swelled up big with child.
I kinda felt something for them.
I don’t know why.
Son, a man don’t always know why he feels what he does.
He just—well, he just does.
We put them out back in the stable.
I’ve slept in worse, I’ll tell you.
Well, it wasn’t long before the little lady
Began her launching. That girl had spunk.
She slipped that kid down the ways
Without battin’ an eye.
We furled Him in a swaddling sheet
And gathered round for a look-see.
When I looked down at Him I saw such a light
Flash in His eyes like ’twould calm the sea of Galilee
When the wind comes out of the night
Whipping the sea, and a man’s life
Is a little thing torn on the wind.
He wrapped His hand around my finger
And squeezed hard.
                               I was warm inside
When I lay down to sleep that night,
Like as if I had walked among the stars
And shook the hand of God.

“Tarry ye here and watch with me.”
He said to the faithful three.
The cool night breeze
Played with the leaves
Flashing them silver in the moonlight.
A little further on He went
Over by the wall where the ivy climbed
And the honeysuckle perfumed the air.
There He knelt, troubled,
Alone in His sorrow,
Alone with our anguish
And the three slept.
Alone
There in the Garden He wept.
God forsaken and alone He trembled in pain.
Alone He ended what began so long ago,
So long ago in that other Garden
When first the Leaf fell,
And Death climbed out of the womb.
And when it was finished what were His thoughts
That night in the Garden?
Of Childhood friends,
A Mother’s touch,
A Wife’s caress,
The Jordan plain flushed gold vermilion
In the autumn sun,
The dead white shores of the great salt sea,
Or the storms that flash over Galilee,
A fish and five hundred,
A footprint in the sand,
The naked, the halt, and the poor
And the many more He could not reach,
For there was no time,
His concern for them who slept
Who did not really understand.
Can we ever understand it all,
The Sacrifice made by a Garden Wall?