First We’ll Speak Many Words About God

1

I am tempted to write a poem that will disavow existence
and give it another chance: I’ll write that
the Garden of Eden has not yet been created, a snake
yet anticipates the appearance of Eve, Cain
has not yet risen to murder Abel, the Tower of Babel
has not yet been built to split the languages of humankind, the Torah
has not yet been given to Moses at Sinai, Gilgamesh
has yet to learn the secrets of his body, Melchizedek
yet walks the streets of the city of Salem, the words I use
yet plead to be heard for the first time.

 

2

Between the follies of man and the follies of heaven
I’ll choose the follies of man. God
does not forgive, and sways from mercy to judgment.
We will pull the hairs on our heads toward the heavens
until they come apart. With our feet we will weigh heavily
on the ground that shakes and breaks
until it is healed and there is a place for our heads. 

 

3

Had I not been born
I’d be all forgetfulness,
without any memory
that I could forget,
without any joy
I could regret,
without any life
I could lose.

 

4

May the miracle come from any place.

 

5

We read books
we write books
and the essence is missing from the book. 

 

6

My sleep is one sixtieth death
or prophecy, my time is one sixtieth redemption
or catastrophe. 

 

7

A poet yelled at me:
the poems won’t give up their wealth
until life itself gives up its poverty.
After him, an economist got up to yell:
the wealthy won’t give up their wealth
lest the poor give up their poverty. 

 

8

Our rabbis said of a king:
one doesn’t see him when he gets his hair cut,
and not when he is naked, and not
in the bathhouse, and not when he stands
before a doctor, and not when he fasts or prays,
so that the fear of him will be upon us.
And one doesn’t ride on his horse, and one doesn’t sit
on his chair, and one doesn’t use his scepter, and he, too,
doesn’t ride on our horses, and doesn’t sit
on our chairs, and doesn’t use our scepter,
and he doesn’t see us when we get our hair cut,
and naked, and bathing, and being healed,
and fasting, and praying, so the fear of us will be upon him.

 

9

I did not sing the praises of the king, I did not describe
his clothes and his gardens and his palaces and his women, and I did not
rejoice in the festive marches, as he passed through the city.
I only counted the skulls that he left to roll in the streets,
I counted a thousand, and ten thousand, and when I finished counting
the blood had already dried on all of them, and the flesh had been consumed. 

 

10

Jerusalem shatters toward the heavens, and her stones—
half are sharpened and half are broken.
And we are the offspring of those stones, breaking
and being broken, thrown against each other
we return to the walls to beg forgiveness,
to rest inside them. And we draw close
spirit to spirit to shatter, body to body
to sharpen, we plead that our city not draw close
again, to the heavens, that the heavens not descend upon her.
And we whisper upward, we are the stones
of Jerusalem and there is no Jerusalem but us,
and we whisper downward,
if you return up above,
we will gather on Jerusalem to leave her,
and no stone will remain standing inside her.
 


11

First we’ll speak many words about god,
that he is one and primordial and immaterial,
that he is the cause of all existence
and the unmoved mover,
that he is merciful and compassionate, patient and full of love and truth,
that he hears prayers and pardons sins,
a jealous god who visits the sins of fathers upon sons
takes revenge and bears grudges and remembers iniquities
and it’s he who annihilated the generation of the flood
and Sodom and Gomorrah
and he killed the firstborns of Egypt
before he drowned Pharaoh’s army in the sea
and instructed the land to open its mouth
and swallow Korah’s assembly
and the houses of Korah’s assembly
and decreed death for every Amalekite
and exiled Israel from their land
and destroyed his land
and burned his temple,
he, the mighty, the great, the awesome
our father our king
god on high
god our castigator
possessor of heaven and of earth,
he is the first and the last
he precedes all that is
creates the creation
fashions light and creates darkness
makes peace and his hands are war.

 

12

First we’ll speak many words
about god,
and later we’ll listen
to the silence of our words
we’ll cease to speak
until we don’t know
a thing about god
until we don’t know
a thing,
until god will say
a thing about us
many words
about us,
that we are many,
dying and living and dying
corporeal and present
we move, are moved, and make move
are merciful and compassionate
begrudging and vengeful
whispering prayers and listening
remembering and forgetting
replenishing human beings and killing.
We, doers of evil and good
peace and war.

 

13

We are a little of god
and he is a little of us,
quiet, and speaking,
revealed, and hiding,
killing and singing.

 

14

And we are still standing on the burnt margins of god,
hoping not to be burned,
hoping to burn.

 

15

What is scarier:
Death or Eternity?