Atirat

Listen:

You drawers of spiritual diagrams,
You fourth Century monks, CE, BCE . . . 

You systematic theologians,

You translators of apochryphal texts,

You spiritual counselors,

You bald priests in red robes,

You suited, sweat-faced evangelists,

You youth ministers with baseball caps and cargo shorts,

Listen, you abnegates, and I will teach you abnegation:

I have tried to love a woman

In the Holy Place,

Tie bells to my ankles.

Tie a noose around my waist.

She is the God I worship,

That I carry in my Ark.

My God my name has taken.

My God has borne my mark.

She is terrible and holy,

She has burned me with her fire.

But no shewbread fills my stomach,

Nor wine quench my desire.

You said: Wives, obey your husbands; 

Husbands, love your wives.

You said: Eve had tempted Adam.

Serpents, women, lies.

But she is too terrible for your doctrines.

I cannot hold her.

She is a force too strong for me

Too imperfect for my poetry.
Too far beyond the scope of your doxology.

I cannot mold her.

She is a clay unmoldable.

You said: Go to the Potter's House.

And destroy her.

And be happy with her destruction.

You said: Go, take yourself a wife of whoredom, and have children of whoredom.

You said: Go, love a woman who is loved by another man and who is an adulteress.

And you bought one for fifteen shekels.

But my woman is not mine:

I can not contain her.
She will not dance for shekels,
But for John the Baptist's head.

She is a force.

She moves me against my will.

I look for her here and there, but I do not find her.

You should have said: Go, give yourself to a woman and offer children to her.

You should have said: Go, love a woman who is loved by another woman and who is loved by all men.

And give your soul to her.

Then, I would have found contentment
In her lap.