From Feast upon the Word (http://feastupontheword.org). Copyright, Feast upon the Word.
(This,) the face of my father: Peniel
he: shut and none shall open;
no key remains to hope in;
spurning bath, disdaining unction,
ignoring mantle: fails to function
my calling word;
my calling, third.
so I strain to riddle sounds
from my own mouth; my eardrum pounds
a rhythm such that heartbeats die;
hearing me, though? only I
beholden to him, yet unseen,
is the here of my here-being;
for my here and there rose black--
an apple--out of the lack
that iris is;
that iris, his.
so I blink and, thus, retain
both the sacred and profane
and hold them to, then sigh:
witness to them? only I
two holes he drilled in me,
filled them up with my to-be;
but with a count so low, I shake
for trembling fear; all logics break
on rocks of breath;
on rocks of death.
so I long for sweet smell past,
breathing stink, now, by contrast;
breathed as slave though not smelled by:
the breathless one? still only I
worded, told, bespoken,
almost sung, laid out, betokened,
though never mouthed: a tongue lacks he
to speak the name he gave to me
in choral shout;
in choral doubt.
so I weave, in different play,
all I never heard him say:
woe is me (and undone: my
most unclean lips): still only I
though he faces not, as such,
yet he holds me with his touch,
keeping me in token; freezing
all my flesh in seizing
beneath the sky;
beneath the thigh.
so I grip his hand in token
of what still remains unspoken
not to breathe, to hear, to see--
his touch: therein find I me
