Pass over me, O Lord. I do not want
the barren desert of my heart to bloom,
abode of ostriches and jackals’ haunt,
for we live comfortably in the gloom.
The light breaks through at times, and it breaks me,
the vision on its own a kind of doom.
The desert’s not so bad if I can’t see,
but if I can, what misery it is.
Take back the light, O God, and let me be.
I know you want to save the world, but this,
where I have cultivated every thorn
with my own blood when sweeter rains did miss?
It was a garden once but now forlorn
it lies beneath a long, unbroken night,
and you know what it costs to be reborn.
Not locusts and wild honey, but on spite
I’ve lived, and on the bitterest streams
until I’d swear there’s venom in my bite.
I like your light; I like the way it gleams,
but knives gleam, too. The harrow and the plow,
their edges shine like diamonds in the seams
of this stone heart you’ll break if I allow.
You’ll grind it down to dust and drench it well—
You’re ready for the planting even now,
but I am not. Like cancer in the cell
your seed in my poor soil would be my death,
and I am more afraid than I can tell
to let you share my earth, my heart, my breath.
How can an infant’s coming here so daunt?
How can it not, when you turn stone to flesh?
Yet how can I refuse to be your crèche?
Egypt, Late Period, Dynasty 26 or later – Jackal – 1940.614 – Cleveland Museum of Art By https://clevelandart.org/art/1940.614, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77266931
Kate Bluett 