The Invisible God. John J. Brugaletta

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ it grow so I can see

      Where to walk and where to rest,

      I may sweep and order here

      For the coming of our Guest.

      I had sensed the pits and bones;

      Firelight tells me nothing new,

      Only steeping my shut eyes

      In the miserably true.

      If this little flame will grow,

      He may come to grace my day,

      So the breath that helps it climb

      Blows in words with which I pray.

      QUEST OF THE MAGI

      Nothing is true below the moon;

      Only the stars are wise.

      That's why we blink at things of earth,

      Searching the steadfast skies.

      Once we'd observed the rising star,

      Each from his proper land,

      Three of us took a mount and food,

      Met as if all were planned.

      On went the star, and we went on

      Following where it led.

      Give no belief to those who say

      Truth will elude the head.

      We had no sense where God's Son lay;

      All we pursued was truth.

      When we were there, we found our goal

      Lodged in a kind of booth.

      Down we dismounted, knelt and gave

      Frankincense, gold and myrrh.

      Herod demanded we report,

      But we did not concur.

      We then returned to our homelands,

      Better for having gone,

      All of us changed by truth we'd seen:

      Light of the coming dawn.

      MATURING

      Each day means fewer things that he can do.

      Some years ago he lost his sense of smell,

      and now he hardly bends to tie his shoe.

      You understand. I'm sure that you can tell

      he's getting old, he's edging toward his grave.

      Slave traders aren't enticed; he wouldn't sell.

      I won't say he is cowardly or brave—

      he's just uninterested in pain or fear.

      He's lived from birth inside an autoclave.

      But now his heart is cooked, his eyes are blear,

      and he has seen some things he'll never say,

      except by tangents, from this biosphere.

      One thing he still delights in is to play

      while kneeling with the children as he'd pray.

      BIRTHPLACES OF IMMORTALITY

      Cities and hamlets that lay wherever the Greeks

      pronounced their Hellenic language claimed

      to be birthplace and home of the father of poets, great Homer:

      Chios, Salamis in Cyprus, Ionia, Smyrna,

      and even Egyptian Thebes. But a man can be born

      in a single location alone, and so one speaks true,

      while the others are wishful pretenders who wink at the truth.

      So do the tumbled adorings of India lie,

      and the horse and the flame of the Persians, the disengagement

      of Buddha in China, the worship of trees and of animals,

      Arabic efforts to bolster their racial esteem—

      lies to acquire for themselves the home-place of God.

      But He broke into time at a single location, a Man,

      perturbing the ones who, if able, had sent Him back home.

      THE CAMEL AND THE NEEDLE'S EYE

      The rich young man speaks

      I have more sheep and goats, more houses, slaves

      than Job before disaster laid him low.

      My wife is out of Solomon and bears

      a stair-step line of children to my fame.

      But here and there I see a boil upon

      the smooth skin of my life, a sign that all

      may one day, in a sudden wind, collapse

      and leave me naked, unprotected, shamed.

      I woke some nights ago and felt the hands

      of doubt, of indecision, of my youth

      that gripped my neck and told me I am small.

      When dawn returned (how long the night can be)

      I checked my wealth and saw fragility.

      So when I heard a teacher was nearby

      I went to him and caught Him on the point

      of leaving us. I wanted some assurance

      that my acts, which held to Moses' law,

      were adequate to buy eternal life.

      He seemed at first to ratify my goal

      by listing those commands I had obeyed.

      But СКАЧАТЬ