mad accounting.
22Perched upon an olive shoot,
one mournful bird surveys it all.
23She whistles his soul sharp
as a hot blade of grass.
24His eyes are two nets
sweeping the world’s floor
and storing its lost inhabitants
in vaulted memory banks.
25My love stations a sign
with steepled letters, scrawled urgent
and with the slant of hard rain.
26The sweat of his thin brow
reflects a fevered blue flame
as he drives the post, with finality,
into the roadside as into Sisera’s temple:
To Zion take refuge! Do not delay!
27Not a one can read, but I.
I studied the hidden books of Anatot
~wrote Anatiya.
28The tongue of the prophet strums sentences
the way the hand of the harpist strums chords.
29A heat rises to your cheeks.
In one fist you capture the ferocity of Nimrod,
in the other, the defiance of Abraham when you rail:
30“Ah mighty Heavens, how You deceive this people,
embracing them in Your right
with sword blazing in Your left!”
31The highest Heavens are shocked
by the thunder of this pale prophet,
which comes in full blast.
Crashing seven firmaments,
your charge unfurls like a flame against them.
32Tufts of cloud bandage the wound,
still I see Heaven wink an almost human tear.
33God loves you, Jeremiah, and your complaint
is hurtful to Him as David’s sling-rock to Goliath.
34O save me! My breath does not come!
The sky splits and the destroyer charges out of a whirlwind
upon a horse of volcanic ash, I saw it too!
35Jeremiah, are we the only ones?
He is rushing toward our city on a meteor.
36I am stunned. I feel as if my hands have fallen to my feet.
37So terrifying the stain that passed over the sky,
the dark storm that filled my eyes for a blink!
38Steer this ship, Jeremiah, away and away
to some untouched shore, some place where the only noise
is the exploding color upon slopes of wildflowers.
39We are on the lip of a hungry abyss!
40There is a bitter freeze around my throat,
a death around my heart.
41Jeremiah, I saw it too, for an instant
I saw calamity utterly consume
this giant love
~wrote Anatiya.
42There is no blemish on the glow
that surrounds you like a metal shield.
43But what good is a shield if the hurt is inside?
It only prevents the pain from escaping.
44My love cries, “O my suffering, my suffering!”
45He falls to the ground and closes his ears between his knees
to silence the blare of horns.
46But the head of my love is an echo chamber
and his knees only prevent the siren from escaping.
47The walls of his heart strain with hurt.
O Lord, let his heart break and begin to heal
rather than this perpetual and terrible swell!
48He writhes and moans and cannot be silent.
49Dear Jeremiah, I, who am Silence, do love you.
50Were I to speak I would be swallowed by the din,
but with hushed lips I am your elixir of life.
51Your fatigue over your people wearies me.
52I pray you forgive me a wave of mild animosity
and rather admire me my honest confession:
Jeremiah, the people are not worthy of your suffering!
53They will never give you heed. They house no fear of Heaven.
54The people are love-struck through the cunning of predator gods
while here in your wake is a one,
a one who heeds your every tear,
a one who hears the soft whistle in your deep-throated sigh,
a one who envies the people your sorrow.
55Do not pity the people. They are foolish children!
Rather, pity the knowing.
A no one,
me.
56I hear an anguished cry
that severs the cord between us.
57I turn and scamper under a thicket
and clamber over a crumbling ledge.
58In the midst of this deserted ruin
