Startled by Existence

5/01

(This poem is not intended to celebrate any misuse of God’s good gift, but rather applaud divine secrecy.)

Tonight

Beneath the vaulted stars

Beneath the arching sheets

Beneath a bridge of bone

The world is being made

Again, and again

And again.

In the beginning

God created light,

And he separated the light

From the dark,

Then called it a day.

And he found

Both the brilliance

And its vanquish

To be good.

God said, “The night is Good.”

Tonight

As a monolithic shadow

Curves 'cross the earth

Like a bowl of partial blindness

Tonight

As beasties creep from their dens

and men enter theirs,

Click the switch and grope

Into the mystery

Tonight

As secret gardens bloom

Underneath the moon

and bridegroom farmers

Plow the virgin soil

Tonight

As mingled wants converge

In beds of wanton lust or love

Conquest or courage,

Dreams of parenthood or status...

Tonight

In the play of hot blood or cold,

Duty or delight,

In the pain of giving

Or having been had …

Tonight

In the sea

That waves

Or cries, like a wounded wolf

Folding us into its arms …

Tonight, in the heat of an ancient beat

Thundering hearts, or the poly-rhythm

That rocks our world as

It rolls, splits --

breaks into new life.

We shut our eyes

As spirit twines with chemistry

Tonight

In a million hidden spaces,

In the wood between the worlds

With all these hidden words

In the dark

The good good dark.

Someday, (maybe it was yesterday)

They will turn the light on mystery

Put it out for all to see

Like a naked running child – with Napalm on her back.

Something we were never meant to see,

In a photo – or a petri dish.

Spread the legs of DNA,

Chart the inner space,

Turn up the floods on the interplay of cells

And see

If the “product of conception”

Measures up.

Does it come

With high IQ,

Or a chance for cancer

Does it come with pedigree, or status

Will it tax the system, or be taxed

Will it match our dishes or display

Our name in ways that we see fit?

Might we with a little luck, fine tune,

Ratchet up the code,

Tweek the parts,

Build the perfect man.

BUT tonight

In the holy dark

In the holy recess of his will

In that place of grand abandon

Where no eye can peer

And no heart approve

In that place

Where no will is safe

From the tug of war of wants, and drives

Where not even planners have their way,

And no amount of Latex or one-child laws can

Dam the flow;

In a land where wedding bands are nice

But never checked

In a place where nappy broken bodies merge

And common sense, intelligence, and status

Go out the window

Tonight

In the hidden

Sheath

Of body and of dark

The Maker

Grows a world,

Peoples his kingdom

Says:

The dark is good