Up, up, and show yourself
The judge of people doing what they want,
Saying what they will and damn
The consequences. “Nothing follows, meaning’s
Deader than the children
Crushed beneath our jackboot heel.
Let them whimper. God
Is not, is far away, and does not care.”
Some never learn. Can one who planted
Ears of corn not hear the zephyr rustle
In the stalks, who made the sun’s eye
Flare not see the shadow you cast here?
The scatterer of nations not disperse
Your atoms? Is the teacher unprepared?
God knows how thought gets mangled.
So law was given Moses to untangle
Ignorance and impulse, love and fear
Of what comes after, for a snare.
Had I not heard from life beyond my silence,
I’d have slipped into the crowd unseen
And died without desire comforted.
Too neat, my Lord? You taught me
Safety in disorder, and the pleasure
Of imagining that justice
Crushes glinting evil to gray powder.
-- from Words to God's Music: A New Book of Psalms by Laurance Wieder
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