and desertCry into my heart; the black sky
Thunders in my throat:
All the sources of life, all sense, all
Reason, beauty, the sublime,
Freeze in this moment, in this cave,
All resources of language, lips, eyes, hands
Flow and freeze in this one command:
Read! Echoing inside me, pounding,
Read! My own voice. I hear
Myself, from deep within:
I cannot, I cannot read.
Again the echo, pressing louder, harder:
Read! The word, the world, bites
In my head, my frame shivering yet
Numb: I cannot read. Read!
Read in the Name of Thy Lord...
Read.
Prophet of God, I am
Steeped in the things
Of sin, and wrong:
Unworthy to stand
Beside you,
Or even to sing in
Your praise.
Prophet of my heart, my
Verse is beneath you, my
Only skill, bequeathed by
Birth, perturbed dreams
Of your nights and days.
How can I come near
The cloak that wraps you,
When fear dries my throat,
When I know Who spoke
In your hearing.
How can I read, or
Understand, when I live
At the edge of His commands,
When my sins need
To feel Him forgive?
Where will I find help;
Where will I know the
Good in Self; where
Will I not be alone, if not
In the places you
Have known?
If I stand, arrayed,
Against my own desire,
For fame, prestige, wealth,
Will your shield defend
My faith, against the fire,
Against my own, lower, self?
If I come stumbling,
Across desert and
Grey seas; if I humbly call
Across the sands, will you
Reach for my hand?
Prophet of God,
Do not turn away from me;
Stay… say a prayer for me:
Unworthy to sing
In His praise.
Prophet of my heart,
My lonely art, companion
Of my unworthy
Nights and days.
Poor, my prophet, are my words:
The sole adorners of this soul.
Unsure, I thought I saw you, once
When Night had clothed me
In her holiness:
This darkness is not for me alone
But glints along the desert’s edge.
In the far corners I sought you,
Of worlds which sing in our nearing;
Inside my own heart I fought you,
In sin that smiles, overbearing.
Let me see the blindness that comes
From light, the life that comes from death;
Let me know the sorrow that numbs
My body, to feel my soul’s breath.
Let me hear your voice in silence;
Let your shadow blind our pale sun;
Bring me to the End of ends, whence
Our souls can show what they have done.
Let the far corners know Your Name,
Lost amid shrines, feet searching through Night;
Let your brilliance nearing blind my shame,
Let my blindness live in your Sight.
When I am weary of this life’s striving,
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