1
FROM BABEL WE ROSE
Stacking our pile of hearts
2
GOD KNOCKED US DOWN
So we lifted him up
3
HE TURNED ALL INTO LOVE ON THE CROSS
4
BAH!
When one man twists, he turns them all
1
FROM BABEL WE ROSE
Stacking our pile of hearts
2
GOD KNOCKED US DOWN
So we lifted him up
3
HE TURNED ALL INTO LOVE ON THE CROSS
4
BAH!
When one man twists, he turns them all
What are we to
He who is
priest, prophet and
sacrificial lamb?
Detail from Theodosia altar (Gelre, 1545) – Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, the Netherlands
On a tree
flipped the earth
and flung the sea.
His waves in space
are coursing still.
They have a lot of
time to kill.
The touch that loosed the shackle
was like that of a girl.
You don’t think she’s interested
until her fingertips
graze your arm.
Then you feel it
through your whole body.
I followed, of course,
right out that door.
But then she was gone.
He lifts the smudge
that clips our view
of heaven bright and blue.
She saved soaps, too,
rolled slivers into balls
and served them up
like sherbet
in a glass dish.
On Saturday we joined her
as she hit the sales –
the garage and yard and supermarket sales.
She was a bulk buyer,
ahead of her time,
filling first the wagon
and then the freezer.
Yes, together we sailed
that blacktop of cash,
we sunned on a river of crude.
And never once did I see
the calamity to be,
never once the fray in her mood.
Nor did I wonder
amid all that plunder
if the tack of our skipper
served the sailor in me.