bone as it is, dear Lord.
Open the spot while he sleeps
and bury me inside
~wrote Anatiya.
26I have run like a gazelle
swiftly away from my love
because I was afraid of the coldness
that seized my ankles
when I fell and he did not turn.
27I felt as if I were a strand of hair on his head
that had become detached.
28A hair that had come loose and slipped
from among his beautiful locks
rolling down his back,
Good-bye Jeremiah!
29I felt as insignificant,
as meaningless as a single hair
shed from a rich, black mane,
as unimportant.
30I am sick for you still.
I chew on my fingers in my anxiety.
Dear God! 31My stubbornness refuses to let me go,
though I pine for the shelter of his shadow.
32I will wait many moons
and waste away
on berries and mushrooms and grassy teas
and stare flat-eyed at the Eastern gate.
33And if You should make for me this sign,
I will know there is a secret meaning
to my unclaimed life, and I shall be happy
to return to my shepherd and my love.
34And the sign shall be this:
He shall walk through that gate
and the pink morning light will cast over him a blush.
35He will take a razor to his head and shear away his locks
and cast them away, and they shall sweep upward to me,
every strand of hair. 36Then I will know that he knows.
I will know I have been destined
to cherish him, here-ever, here-after,
as witness and hidden disciple,
whisper and caress.
7
Gasp! My soul leaps into my throat, I see a vision! A man in white linen is coming through the gate. 2His head is high and lovely, O, let me gaze upon his face! 3My eyes are saltwater fountains, pent-up springs that have just now burst. 4He walks with a grace, with the grace of a tree, his body a white-barked tree and his hair a tumble of willowy leaves. 5It has been nearly three moons since I have looked upon you, my life. O, your presence astonishes!
6Praised be God in Heaven! Praised be God on earth! Praised be God in you, dear prophet. 7He dangles you like a lantern filled with His Own light, a light which is sown for the righteous. 8He holds you in front of Him the way a woman holds a candle as she creeps from room to room to blow a kiss to each of her children as they lay asleep in the dark. I have been asleep! 9For three moons I have been asleep, relying on illusions that are of no avail. 10True, I have cleansed my body with grassy tea. I have wrestled the demons of the cliff. I have slept with a rock for my pillow. I have shaded my skin from the swarthing sun, healed my passion-wracked frame. 11But the instant I see you appear, out of clouds of dust, I feel the sickness overtake me again, grab hold of my heart and steal my breath. I am sick for you! Sick in love! 12I never again want to be numbly healthful. Rather, let me be filled with hurt and longing. Let me burn. 13I feel God when I see you! I feel God racing through my veins and rousing every bit of me. 14A shofar blasts through my body. Wake all you sleepers! Wake! I am alive, and trembling. 15The tiny hairs on my body stand up like a troop. Praised be God for this frenzy of living!
16As for me, if I could just watch you ~wrote Anatiya.
17My spirit rushes to go to its place while my body stands dumbfounded upon the ledge. 18When I am beside you, Jeremiah, I am an astronomer and you are the sky. Here in this cave I am the queen of the mountain, grand and glorious. 19In your shadow I am only a speck of cinnamon dust, but the life in me is great, like the wide-leafed plant concealed within the tiny mustard seed. 20How I rebelled against you! When I called to you and you did not respond, I doubted you. 21Now I see you, sun-kissed, and I know . . . that here in this cave I am grand but nameless, but there in your wake I am Anatiya!
22As for you, I hear you raise a cry of prayer on behalf of a crescent of listeners before you. Their eyes are placid and their mouths curl up half mocking. 23In their hearts they are thinking, “Good thing he is not my son!” and “How entertaining!” 24But to me, your words are delicate ice crystals fanning over the sky. 25While children wander away to gather sticks, and fathers absentmindedly slow-roast leg of lamb, and mothers distract themselves with flour and water and frivolous fingers, I stand transfixed and absorbed.
26How they vex you! ~wrote Anatiya. 27It is rather themselves whom they vex, to their own disgrace. 28But I see straight through those husks and shells and into the kernel of you. It has the gleam of amber, a fire encased in a frame. 29Out of the core, torches and flares dash forth on wings. The sound of the wings is like the sound of mighty waters, and these are your words, the words of Shaddai. 30They burn, and vast floods cannot quench them, nor rivers drown them.
31Thus writes Anatiya ~ I see that the wrath of God fills you, but the wrath is not your own. You yourself are love, Jeremiah. 32I can see you, Jeremiah, standing boldly between God and those cities Sodom and Gomorrah, standing in Abraham’s place. 33Abraham had argued that God spare these cities if there be found a number of righteous people inside. 34But you would argue differently, I know. 35You would say, “Far be it from You to do such a thing, to bring death upon the people when they still might repent! 36Would You wipe out the whole city if there be found one chance that a sinner might change? 37What if there should be found one rebel who might turn to You in future days, turn to You and repent, will You destroy the whole city and not forgive it for the sake of one reluctant repentant? 38Will the One Who created the world out of nothing, Who moved potentiality to actuality, will He ignore all potential in these large cities of living beings?”
39All at once, your eyes lift, burning coals full of fever. Your eyes lift and look into my own! 40All my life I have been the noticer, but never, until this moment, the one to be noticed. Your mouth is stilled, lips parted. 41All the world melts but your eyes remain locked to mine across four thousand cubits of rolling hills. My chest lifts and falls like a newborn fawn. 42The blue falls out of the sky. Creation is as empty as the day before time, and as endless. 43God is hovering over us, a wind that tousles our hair, expanding. 44I feel a great inhaling, everything I have ever known draws inward, into God’s deep inhaling. Floating, my feet are filled with air, and you keep looking at me. 45I was a scroll sealed tightly in an earthen jar, hidden in a sheath
