After God
Poems from the Collection
Part One: FIRST KNOWING
THE JUNK MAN AND THE SISTER
1.
At four my little body,
little soul, join like
play pals. Alone we rock
and rock and
rock hours
on the old arm chair.
Joy to the world!
The Lord has come!
I sing it in body.
I sing it in soul.
I howl in protest
when finally Mama
brings in the junk man
to take away the chair
I’ve worn down to
trash. In theatric futility,
in tears I pull
against the junk man and
stomp my feet.
GOD'S PAPER EYES
Sister Steven Helen
smiles
and lifts the cover page
of the huge pad on the tripod
to reveal
to my five-year-old, wide eyes:
GOD
in bright
comic book pastels.
Against a paper sky of blue, I see
an old man, white-haired,
long white beard. He wears
white sheets.
He sits on a gold chair
that’s on a cloud.
This is:
God, the Father, who
made you to
know, love and
serve Him.
There is anger in his eyes.
Around him people with wings
and gold hair bow down.
Part Two: UNKNOWING
DIVORCE CAN BE NASTY
Curmudgeon!
Despot
Lightning hurler
Crank upstairs
Over
Lauded
Over
Feared
Elusive as a cockroach
When the light switch flips
Biblical Wizard of Oz
That’s You
We’re through!
Part Three: Unknowing Squared
HOLE IN THE SOUL
Some days I believe in You. Some not.
But even when not, I still wonder about You.
The space You fill before I unbelieve You
never leaves with You.
I once had a cat for a month. Drove me crazy
with allergies and pooping on my washing machine and
never coming to me when I called. Just like You.
I gave the cat away. Came home and found
it left its space behind. Empty. Sad space. I missed that cat.
But only for a while. Soon the cat’s empty space was gone.
Like any emptied self-respecting space, it had cursed me,
shook the dust of me from its feet, and left to follow the cat.
But not Your space. It always stays
when I empty it of You.
Hangs a vacancy sign in its window. And
through it, stares blank back at me.
OK then. Come home.
Just for tonight.
Tomorrow I will unbelieve you again.
But tonight come
fill
the hole
in
my soul.
2.
In first grade
God, stolen by the junk man,
comes around each day, ethereal
feminine, hooded and cloaked
in black, hypnotically close
over me in Sister, checking
the little block letters I practice
in my copybook. When she draws
near, the air around her
carries the scent
of her veil—like God breathing
over my head.
Big black Rosary beads hang
from her waist beside my ear. I listen
into their rattle—secret strange
clicky sounds from God.
These are:
Angels,
who live in the sky with God
in a place called Heaven.
I look for the green of trees
and grass. None.
With her wooden pointer
Sister taps God’s paper eyes.
God is watching
you
all day, all
night, all day, all night
to see
if you are good,
but especially to see
if you are
bad.
TWO CALLS
Are You watching—
whispering wordless
Leave?
The same You who
called me
in?
The You again who
calls me
out?
Or are the calls
only me
hunting
me
hunting
You?
CLAY FEET
Yesterday, when I was walking exiled
in clay feet in the cool of the evening
outside the garden of the Tree
of the Knowledge of Good and Evil,
God slipped into a pair
of clay feet too
We walked foot to foot for some time
and being that close, I noticed that
God is:
More earth than air
More of here than of there --
And all of now
Bounding in and out of ifs
Abiding boundless inside is
Transcendent most
When curled in the crannies of creation
i
As much a She as He
And She is also we, and God forgive me,
Also me
Creeds cannot catch Him
Nor churches cage Her –
He keeps no throne in Rome
She has no test for us to pass
No will for us to bow to—
He burns no hell
She yawns when She hears “O God” intoned
By preachers over the pews
But He cups His ear when
A lone soul whispers
O God, help me make it
Through the night
That’s when He leans in and
That’s when the lone soul
May be opened to the abiding hum
That mutely carries His response
From the ground
Of His universe:
Nothing to do but be, dear,
Nowhere to be but here