Abraham

_{(from Real People/Real God!)}

_{Avram, how can I thank you for leaving
A young man out to seek his fortune?
Hardly.
More like a man over-the-hill from Ur, um,
"hearing" things.
Okay--half-hearing/half-fenagling,
heading for God knows where,
with Sarai and the others in tow.
But that's the point,
Isn't it , Avraham?
God does know where.
And God also knows that
Because of you,
I leave, too,
receiving a new name
as I go.}

CONCERT AT THE SPRING

Andante willows dip and sway
in sostenuto breeze.
My happy heart allegro beats.
I wade up to my knees.

Water--cold, like crystal-plays
scherzando 'round its course,
And tastes like cress and ginger
all clean above its source.

Here presto spider weightless skims
and fish staccato swims,
While gnats, all agitato, swarm
In warmth beneath tree limbs.

And just a measure over, winds
a maze of silver gloss...
The crisscross trails of lento snails
upon the largo moss.

For ears to hear and eyes to see
and heart to love, I pause.
Adore Him!--Christ the Maestro--
with thunderous applause.

BEHOLD HIM

Behold Him who flung the stars
and made us a garden!
What wretched, world-slain God is this?--
ignominiously dying, gurgling grace,
While all creation squats
And casts its lots--not for His Passion--
but for His robe?

Behold Him who flung the stars
and rent my heart asunder!
What manner of Man is this!--
whose sheer Authority razed me,
whose Love then raised me,
Alive in Him, crying
Abba!

Golda

Queen of honeycake,
dowdiest of daughters,
minister of mercy
with the outstretched hand.
All the slick resumes
stacked to heaven
couldn't trick God!
He made you Prime Minister.

And surrounded by the mighty men of Israel,
you stretched out your arm
to serve them honeycake
and the inspired hunch
As the LORD of Hosts waged war
(Blessed be He!)
from your kitchen.

HOMONYMIC HOMILY

G-D reins.
G-D reigns.
He just rains
and rains
and
rains

LEAH

(from Real People/Real God!)

Leah, I'm sorry you were
the booby prize.
If I could hug you, I would,
Though I know it wouldn't be the same
as Jacob.
But was the pain worth it?
Oh, tell me it was!
Tell me that you saw praise
beyond Judah,
Triumph beyond a grave!
Tell me that you saw some microscopic
shred of your DNA in Him,
a certain haimishness, perhaps,
a weakness to the eyes,
or even some obscure gene
to ward off disease?
But if not that, Leah--if not even that--
Then tell me you recognized the pain
He, too, embraced
When Jacob cried,
"Give us Barrabas!"

MATTHEW

(from Real People/Real God!)

Levi, I see you hunched over a table,
if you still have a table,
writing the book you know will never make you rich
because it's not for sale.
And neither are you any more.

"Shema Yisrael!" you write,
not in double-ledger Latin,
nor politically-correct Greek,
but in an older script still,
from right to left...like flames
####### parchment,
Like the fire shut up in your bones.

"Hear, O Israel--Touch!
Oh, taste and see!
This Son's like no other--
He's our ever-loving Man!

Apparently, it was news worth dying for.
And so you did, Matthew,
As much for me as He.
And so did I, Matthew,
The day your book read me.