Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no comforter here?
I have spent a lifetime
In a tide of tears
And my only joys
Aside from You
Were spun on webs;
They weren’t true.
They were designed to trap me
And drain it all.
Have these weapons prospered?
Hear my call!
Why is the health
Of Your daughter
Not restored?
What are all these tears for?
I miss the tenderness
Of my children in arm
Cradled and cooing
Soothing their alarm
With song and kiss.
I have been bereaved
Of my motherhood
While they live
Please see all I’ve withstood;
I am greatly aggrieved.
How should I put this right?
By giving everyone a pound of flesh?
Everyone wants a bite
Of whatever is left.
I could break free
By tearing asunder
The design of me,
But it becomes empty plunder.
No one has ever loved me;
No one has put my good first.
And their apathy has shoved me
Into the hands of the absolute worst.
I know I carry all the blame as well,
But this hell
Was never my intention.
I woke up here alone.
I must be so hard to love.
So many people just figure it out
Push past the insufficiencies,
The blemishes and doubts,
And forge something sacred
In the intimacies and silence
But I’ve lived in isolation
With men of violence
And no one will stay
But those who ensure
I will pay for their presence;
If they must endure,
I must accommodate.
I must recompense.
I have lost all my hope,
All that I sensed
Was good and worthwhile.
These vile creatures trick
And abscond with my soul
I am sick
With longing to be whole and cared for
Beyond exploitation
The only men stronger than I am
Don’t respond to invocation.
And men are no longer the sort
To stand for the weak,
To state the cause of the one
Who cannot speak.
Men would prefer to amuse themselves,
To find some pleasant diversion
From their God-given roles
To defend against aspersions
And subjugations.
Manhood is lost
But the ones who really eat that cost
Are the women and children.
If I asked Noah
If rain makes the flowers grow
With the bodies of his neighbors,
Of the human race, still afloat
Would he wax poetical?
Would he grieve, or scream,
Or curl up under the monotony
Of the constant streams
In a mixture of confused gratitude
And fetal defeat?
Was his faith and vindication
Enough to make the rain taste sweet?
So many placed inside,
In his care, to tend-
Buffeted and isolated from without,
Limited and exhausted within-
Trapped in an ark,
The only way to stay alive,
Is no place to raise a family,
No place to build a life.
But later, when the floods receded
And the land turned green again
Lush with fertility, and safe
From the violence of godless men
Did the water wash away
The curses and the spilled blood?
Were the bones ever exhumed
From their graves of mud?
If I asked Noah then,
With his grandchildren at play
Around his feet, plenty to eat,
Plenty of room to splay,
No more mockery and injury,
No more toiling with hardened hearts
Nor tarrying in hope
With the very ones who tore him apart
But family existing in unity,
Lifting voices in praise and feast
To multiply and cultivate
In abundance and peace
If the death the rain delivered,
And the life that erupted in its wake
Was worth the years of struggle:
The work, the loneliness, the heartbreak;
Would he respond with a low, breathy chuckle?
I have been at the end of this life
Since my first breath
Yet You continue my stay
You postpone my death
While I crumble
Under the weight of pain
Moments out of context
Your kindness regains
The pulse of Your intention
Make me Your possession
You are the only
Worthy obsession.
I love the wild ones;
The ones on the outskirts:
The ones who belong to You
But cannot resist to flirt
With the unknown
With the cosmic gray
Into which the unexpected blends
We are what You say
We are and will be
By Your fiat
You keep us or we perish
Because You are more than assumption;
You have form, but aren’t formulaic.
I awoke this morning,
To the same repetitions
Ending with coffee on the porch
Thinking of my night’s petitions
Into silence and inertia
Asking why no one cared,
Why I must remain unloved;
So close to accusation, I was scared.
Coffee in hand now,
My children gather
Around a small dead sparrow
Lifeless little feathers
In front of our home,
In the center of our path
And my daughter, deeply moved,
Asks what kind of life it had.
I tell her I don’t know,
But not a bird falls to earth
Outside of His care
And I wonder if my worst
Can still be hidden in His best.
They sell promises like snake oil.
What part of this is real,
And what has exploitation distorted?
I have contorted
My every genuflection.
Are these the reflections
Of our desire, or the higher reality?
Is my mortality
Hidden in Your infinity?
God, my God, grant me serenity.
I want to scream against the night
Guttural, ephemeral, until my echo
Reaches whatever height
Is required for You to know
I can’t do this forever.
These wounds feel wasted, by and by,
Show me who You are
Show me You aren’t some lullaby
We sing at the dark
To put off the Never.
If no one is coming to love me
Don’t fill my sails
With the winds of hope, see
How I fail
And have pity if You don’t have mercy.
Oh You, my King, the God in Egypt,
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob:
Love Your possession;
Show Yourself.
I say with all utmost respect.
viewingcamelot 