What the Pain Is For

One way to think of it is as a mother, fat with child.
She knows it must grow larger before it can live on its own,
But every day she waits is more pain for her.
She must carry it within her belly.
It must leave her in blood and water.

Another way to know it is through fire.
Burn the outside, scorch the skin.
That smell is you that you never knew before.
The sound is crackle and pop.
The rough scars cover you like leather.

It is to be avoided. Comfort is preferable.
Comfort of couch and retirement.
Comfort of beach chair and hot tub.
Comfort of woman lying beside me,
In coffin, six feet down.

It is a memory of the future.
It is a warning of things past.
It is the ever present choosing
Of will in moment, page turned, book closed.
Ovaries withered. Childless.

It reminds you to suck air into your lungs,
To bless daisies,
To father child, full term,
Ten pounds, nine ounces,
Every ounce earned.

Happy & Blessed

Blessed are those who must beg for God.
Heaven is yours.
Blessed are those who feel sorrow at parting.
Another will come to you.
Blessed are the gentle.
You will be given the land.

Blessed are they who starve for the acceptance of God.
You will be fed.
Blessed are the merciful.
You will receive mercy.
Blessed is the one whose soul is clean.
God will reveal himself to you.

Blessed are the peacemakers.
You are sons and daughters of God.
Blessed are they who are driven away as they make themselves acceptable to God.
Heaven is yours.

Blessed are you when they speak evil of you,

When they drive you away, 

When they lay deceit at your feet,

Because of Me. 

Spin in the fields!

Stretch out your arms!

Look up to heaven!

Take more happiness than you deserve!

For you will be paid richly by the universe!

Look how they drove out those who came before you,

To proclaim the Kingdom of God.

You are salt that cannot be salted,

You make the land bear good fruit,

What shall we do when you lose your nature?

Shall we let them walk all over you?

Let your light shine, little lamb.

Let them see with their own eyes 

The precious art the Master of the Universe works in you. 

The Naming of My Youngest Daughter, Newly Baptized

I was listening to an old audio recording of Terence McKenna that someone had put on YouTube while I was cleaning my parents' kitchen. Actually, I wasn't cleaning the kitchen. I was eating tacos. We had picked up two twelve-packs of various hard-shelled supreme, soft-shelled supreme, hard-shelled, and soft-shelled tacos on our way home from the property where we are planning to build a house. It was a Monday afternoon, after Veralee had gotten off work sometime around 4:30. The Property, as we called it, was a place to go to be reminded of our existence. We had been living with my parents after selling our old house, and while my parents have been more than gracious, the house felt crowded.

So, after getting home from the trip, I was standing in my parents' kitchen (with full intentions of cleaning it), while dousing my gut with Taco Bell and listening to McKenna deconstruct Finnegan's Wake, which (as I remembered on my walk in the woods) was the same thing as deconstructing Joyce. To deconstruct the work is to deconstruct the man.

McKenna was chasing this rabbit about the entire universe being contained within the pages of Finnegan's Wake, which is the same thing as saying that Joyce put as much as possible of himself as he could've in the book. There's no way to put the entire universe inside a book unless you could put an entire man inside it. A universe can't fit inside a book, but it can fit inside a man. And that's what Joyce did, I suspect. He put himself inside that book, then stepped into his grave.

It was naming, I think, that McKenna was after. I suggested to my wife that our daughter Emmalee was the only person in the world who truly bore her name. There's a tradition on her side of the family of naming daughters with names ending in -lee. Veralee, Rosalee, Marylee, and other names similar to our daughter's. Our eldest had taken the first name Elanor, then we added Leigh as a middle name as a sort of insurance policy in case we never had another girl. With that obligation being provided for, we felt safe enough to give our second daughter the name Evelyn, after her father's mother's mother who had recently died. We compensated for such an affront to my wife's sensibility, of providing a daughter from her loins with the name of a grown woman from the other side of the family, by assigning to Evy her mother's middle name, which was also the last name of her mother, Massey. But to our third-born girl, who bears the distinction of being the only one born both after the vasectomy and on purpose, we gave the name Emmalee, which was for all practical purposes the equivalent of naming her Veralee, Jr.

I was walking with Emmalee, in the woods, chatting about life. She's nine. She asked me where words came from. It was a good question. I had been thinking a lot about that question myself. Stooping on the path that wove through the thicket of rosebriar and honeysuckle, I picked up a stick and grunted at it, then picked up a leaf and grunted something else. I asked her if that was how the first words happened. Then, a little later, along came an ape-woman, the ape-man's grand daughter, and she was sniffing around on the ground and picked up a rock and barked a different sound, and all her grandchildren knew what that word was just because she had spoken it for the first time.

We were holding hands, and the sticker bushes were flushed with green. The rain had fallen a half-hour earlier, and golden streams of sunlight poured upon us from the western horizon.

You can do that, too, Emmalee. You can see something new and give it a name. Look out there, and notice something new for the first time, and then give it a brand new name.

She looked at me doubtfully, for a moment. But then she looked up into a tree, smiled, and declared that she had discovered the Tree Y.

And what is a Tree Y?

Here's the definition of Tree Y. A Tree Y is when two branches in a tree make a Y. That is called a Tree Y. 

And here's how it's spelled: Tree Y. With a big T and a big Y.

She added:

A Tree V is when a tree comes up out of the ground like a V.

And then:

A Tree T makes a T!

I thought about how that word was going to cause problems for her when she began to study history. Anyway, what about the other letters? Didn't she notice yet the infinite curves of the woods? What about Ds and Ss? I swear I'd seen a Tree G before. Why not just name the entire alphabet? Or why stop there? Why not invent new letters, 26 more? An alphabet of opposites. Tear down sound itself.

What utterance F? What vibrations philharmonicaleighatkinetics?

Anybody who ever came across a new kind of tree shape that he'd never seen before could use the name that she had invented. I told Emmy that it was okay to name things that she had never seen if she thought they could be out there. I mentioned Higgs boson.

Later, on the drive home, I told her that Hope is the naming of the unseen. Deeper than Faith. It owes more to the soul. I think it's out there, but I need something written down to remind myself. Something not far from me.

My youngest daughter is in my heart. I told her that I am in her heart, too. I told her that to love someone is to put them into your heart, and that they would live forever, as long as you held them there.

Hold me there, Emmy.

Hold us there, reader.

Together, forever.

In the woods, where you see Tree Ys.

What My Heart Saw

I've been busy wrestling this insideness,
Trying to pull it out to the light,
Where I can know it,
Where I can share it with you and show you what it is.
It's very beautiful,
At least it feels very beautiful inside there,
Where you put it when last I saw you.

God Bless This Cheap Hotel

I'm going to Kent.

I think I'll swing down through Evansville,

And make my way up the valley

To see how the streams have shaped the landscape

Along the border between Indiana and Kentucky.

I'll crawl through Southern Ohio,

Along the foothills of Appalachia,

Where the roads are as crooked

As an old man's thumb.

I'll take my time, getting there.

It may take ten years or more,

And I may stop to rest a while

In the caverns just down the road from Mad River Mountain

With a jug of moonshine and a lotus flower.

And if I fall asleep, or wake in Circe's bedroom,

Don't bother with the spindles,

Nor wait to bury my father. 

I will wake when the wars have passed

And return an old man with a long, grey beard. 

Tell the Warby Gals their daddy got hit by a train.

Find a man with a thin mustache and a white suit,

Someone bona fide.

I will seek the treasure in a cheap hotel.

I will raid Polyphemus, blaspheme Zeus, 

And trust Athena to save me.

While I am sleeping, I will dream of you.

While I am awake, 

I will dream of the god I have become, 

Writing poems about love, alone with coffee and crackers.

For now, I'm making my bed with the misfits,

Hoping to find something to search for.

As for heaven,

I'll believe it when I see it with my own two eyes.

Preparing for Death

The word heretic means:

Able to choose,

Factious,

Divisive,

Inclined to separate.

He told them to avoid the Samaritans.

He told them to avoid the Gentiles.

He told them to gather the lost sheep of Israel

To announce that the kingdom has come.

But the Emperor still sits in Rome,

The sheep are still scattered,

And the wolves gorge themselves

On mutton.

There is nothing to do

But run.

Fear and Howling

Do not believe a word.
Language has only one function,
Which is to hide the truth beneath sound and symbol.

But if I touch your face,
If I kiss your cheek,
You may judge my intentions.

Do not believe,
Even for one second,
That I will jump from this page to save you.

If I hold you so that you do not fall,
If I rub lotion on your feet,
If I beat back Wolves that encircle you,

You may believe more
Than what you read in this poem,
That is written to turn your face to me.

This is a lie that I do not want to tell you.

Devil Sonnet

For Rabbi McKenna

Sometimes I feel the devil speaks
Through me.
El Diablo, he is called, The Double.
My mind is devilish, split into two lobes.

The Lord is One, however,
Three, too,
Which is much more confusing.
My third mind cannot find this,
With Black Wallaces circling above my head,
Like death.

In the delta, a child was born
Along the banks of Belém,
Under the eclipse of the sun.

It is natural to believe that god was born
Where I was born,
When god is born everywhere. 

Old Dogs, Same Old Tricks

For Maj Ragain

The trick is
To build something that lasts
Longer than these brittle bones.

I should have no complaints.
I have run 20 miles in one afternoon,
High on all of nature.

But I broke my toe a year ago and have not run without discomfort since.
Now my toe turns red and swollen
Just walking down the street.

Uncle Walt,
At the age of 37 I am no longer in perfect health,
Nor do I hope to cease,

But I am still quite nimble.
I can run still,
If only with a little pain,

A small annoyance,
Modest price to pay,
To move across the lands of God

As jackals and coyotes do,
Who move in hunger,
Avoiding death,

Like sharks that must keep swimming
To move the ghost across their gills,
Or risk to sink into the abyss.

I, though, fat with painlessness,
Sea salt carmel gelado,
Ibuprofen, and a douse of whiskey,

Have many miles left to run
Before I wrap the drapery of my couch about myself,
And a foot that works without a little pain is no foot at all.

Teach me to run, old dog,
Faster on four legs.

A Message I Have Carried

You will find it between the legs of a caterpillar,
Or spreading out upon water, iridescent, WD-40,
Falling in sudden moments almost unnoticed,
Like a meteor that streaks
Across the corner of your eye.

You can go to the books, too,
Blake, Whitman, and Borges
Have carried it with them,
But there you find the messenger
Grows larger than the message.

Look for yourself,
Beneath a rock, where a centipede curls,
Where the paper wasps tend their nurseries,
Go inside the cocoon,
These things are possible.

Wade into Niagara above the falls,
Test your courage,
The current moves not so swiftly as your fear
And can be withstood
By one without weak knees.

Eat more fruit and honeysuckle.
Be stung by bees.
Watch the crescent moon fall beneath the Pacific,
In January and July,
Watch it rise from the Atlantic, full in September.

Put down the pen and paper,
Put your books aside,
Rub lotion on a woman's legs any chance you get,
Sleep long and deep in a bed of leaves
On autumnal afternoons.

There is still much work to do
Before my soul retires.
I have many lives yet to live.
More blacktop streets to walk upon
In the neighborhoods of Illinois.

You will find the message.
Carry it with you further.
It will be your burden.
My breath will fill your lungs,
My hand will move your pen.

El ó Him

For García-Márquez

Gabriel is the name of an angel. In America, women who are born with this name pronounce it the same way the mexicanos do. In Mexico, women who are born with this name pronounce it with the letter a at the end, so it sounds more beautiful and feminine.  In America, if you are a boy and you have this name, it means that your name is pronounced with a long a sound in the first syllable. The name is Hebrew. It means man of God. According to Wiktionary.com, it comes from the Hebrew word géver, which means, man (an adult human male being). The second part is El, the name of God.

Géver-El
Géber-El
Gébre-El,
Gabre-El
Gabri-El

When the very old man with enormous wings fell from the sky, he was greeted by those who hid their faces and would not receive the message El had sent him to deliver. He returned to heaven in order to tell El that the people would not receive the message that he was supposed to have delivered, but he was fearful that El would be unhappy that his adult human male being was unable to communicate with the people to whom he was sent, so Gabriel invented a plan to convince El that the people were wicked because they had sinned.

"Have you considered your servant?" Gabriel asked El. 

"I have," El replied.

"Have you considered his faithfulness to you?" Gabriel asked El.

"I have," El replied.

"Have you considered that his faithfulness to you is dependent upon your faithfulness to him?" Gabriel asked El.

"I have," El replied.

"Then I suggest you should not be faithful to him," Gabriel suggested.

"I cannot be unfaithful," El replied. "I am faithful. I cannot be otherwise."

Gabriel considered this problem carefully for many eternities, for the sun had not yet come into existence in those days, and the ocean rose and fell one hundred hundred times, for the moon pulled eternally on the face of water for ageless ages before the sun came into being. At last, Gabriel discovered in his mind a satisfactory solution to the problem and approached the throne of El again.

"Have you considered yourself?" Gabriel asked El.

"I have," El replied.

"Have you considered your faithfulness to yourself?" Gabriel asked El.

"I have," El replied. 

"Then I suggest that you consider your servant as you consider yourself, then you will know if he is faithful to you," Gabriel declared.

So, El planted a garden in the East and formed man from the clay to work in it. In the garden El planted two trees. One tree was called The Tree of Life and the other tree was called The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. El told the man whom he had formed from the dust of the ground and the wind of his breath to enjoy the fruits of any tree in the garden, but not to eat the fruit of The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, for if he did, he would surely be forgotten.

Then El created a companion for the man and called it "companion of man" for it was a companion to man. So man and companion of man dwelled together in the garden, eating fruits of many trees, and wearing no clothes.

Then, the very old man with enormous wings awakened the serpent (who was asleep) and said to the serpent: "Awake! There is a man and a companion of man inside your gardens!"

The serpent, who was dreaming, stood and hissed, for it had great fear of man. 

Then, the very old man with enormous wings said to the serpent, "You should not tolerate a man in your garden. Look! He reaches to take fruit from your trees! Watch! He shares your fruits with his companion!"

The serpent saw that the companion of man was naked, and he desired to take the companion of man for himself. So he came to where the companion of man was standing and seduced it, saying, "Eat of this fruit, for you are beautiful, and I am giving you this fruit to eat."

"Which fruit shall I eat?" the companion of man asked the serpent.

"This good fruit, which grows where my belly crawls," the serpent replied.

The companion of man looked down and saw the serpent among vines that sprawled along the floor of the garden path. A large, round fruit grew from white and yellow flowers that bloomed among the vines, and the companion of man reached down to pluck and eat it, for the serpent had offered it to eat and said that it was good. 

The seed of that fruit grew within the belly of the companion of man, and the companion of man became a woman and gave birth to two sons: Forethought and Afterthought, and Time began.

Then there was morning, and there was evening, and that was the first day.

Then the woman tempted the man, who was still innocent of guilt, and the woman seduced the man, who had been innocent of guilt up to that very moment.

When the man understood what the woman had done to him, he saw that she was naked and beautiful, so he made her bear his sins upon her back for nine months, and he cursed El for sending him such a companion.

"What have you done?" he asked the woman. "Why have you eaten the fruit that is forbidden to eat?"

"I have not eaten fruit that is forbidden to eat," the woman replied. "I have eaten only the fruit that was offered for me to eat."

"Fool!" the man cried. "We are destroyed! We have been undone! You have made me guilty! I have seen my nakedness! Let us hide our skin beneath skin! Let us bear children in pain! Let us plant our own gardens!"

Then, the man drove the serpent and all the serpent's children from the garden and killed an ox, whose skin he stretched across olive branches to provide shelter from sun and rain and hailstones. 

In the morning, Afterthought offered sacrifices of meat to El in thanksgiving for delivering them from the sinful nature of the serpent, and El believed that man still was faithful to him, so El gave Afterthought a beautiful woman named Venus to be his wife. But when Forethought saw Venus bathing as he watched her from his balcony, he became jealous and killed his brother to take the woman for his own.

When Forethought took Venus into his bedchamber, she would not receive him, for she was still in mourning over the death of her beloved. Forethought wrestled her to the ground, and she cried out for help, but no one answered, for her husband was dead. Nine months later she gave birth to a son and named him Ishmael, for she had cried out but no one answered. After this, Forethought wrestled her 12 more times, and she bore for him twelve more sons.

When Ishmael grew old, he vowed to take revenge upon the aggression of the man who had fathered him against his mother's will. "I will destroy all of your works!" he declared. "I will wipe your memory from the face of earth so the world will no longer bear your sin!" Then, Ishmael set out to destroy his father and his brothers, but his father could see into Ishmael's intentions, for he could see the future, so he transformed his children into diamonds and rubies and sapphires and threw them into the sky, where they hid among the planets and the stars, and because they are the children of Forethought, they hold the secrets of the future.

When Gabriel looked down upon the earth, he saw Ishmael roaming from village to village, seeking out his brothers to destroy them, but they could not be found anywhere. Gabriel took pity upon Ishmael and appeared to him, saying, "Behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy! You will give birth to a son, and through him you will rule over all generations!" 

Ishmael did not believe this, for he had no woman to bear him children, so he mocked the very old man with enormous wings, saying, "Can a man enter the womb again and be reborn a second time?"

"Yes!" the man from El replied.

So Ishmael was received by Venus, and she gave birth to a son, who was named Oedipus, for he was born when a son entered his mother's womb to be born a second time. Oedipus became a mighty king and conquered many nations, and Venus ruled beside him, a righteous judge and lawgiver.

When Gabriel looked down from the heavens, he saw that his plan to fool El had worked, for he had never been asked to give account of the message he had been sent to deliver, and which he could not remember after so many years. So again he approached the throne of El and asked, "Have you considered the faithfulness your servant?"

But El rebuked the angel for his wickedness, demanding an accounting for his actions. "Why have you forgotten the message I entrusted to you?" El demanded, and Gabriel, unable to reply, was cast down among the crabs, where he was discovered by a poor farmer and locked up with the hens.

On the Fall of the Roman Empire: A Prophecy in Three Parts

Part I:

Heraclitus spoke from a cloud and said:
The river is moving,
And I am rain.

Part II:

The thief said:
Surely you are the son of god,
For I am a sinner and have earned my reward.

Part III:

The Prophet said:
The rain falls on the just and the unjust,
Above the clouds of Yemen.

Conversation on a Mountaintop Near the Gates of Heaven

I sat within the Mind of God
Among The Buddha and The Christ.

I said:
Reveal your true nature!
They showed me a mirror.

I said:
Show me a sign!
They handed me a rock.

I said:
Prophesy!
They pointed to the East.

I said:
Make me believe!
And I awoke as from a dream.

Entertainment for My Ex-Wife Who Suffered from Pain of Capsular Shift Surgery

Listen,
There have been years between us,
Patterns have emerged,
And I do not want to be the man your father is,
Nor my father.

There are times I am filled with goodness,
Sitting, smiling, eating at the table
With Buddha, Jesus, and Krishna in good company,
Filled with emptiness,
Dining on love.

There are times I go spelunking,
Deep into the belly of the earth,
Where I search for the grave,
Seeking rebirth in dark, quiet waters,
In the belly of Gaia.

There is time for joy and sorrow.
There is time for love and anger.
There is time for tenderness and hardness.
There is time for company and solitude.
There is time for time and time.

Do you know the frosted leaves of cold December?
I remember sitting, back against a tree,
Trying to be silent, not to spook the deer.
My toes, icicles.
My breath, vapor.
The sun rose over the eastern horizon in brilliance of white and hot,
Hot to see, cold to touch,
Diamonds of ice melting into rays of light,
Too brilliant to observe without going blind,
Reflecting in every stiff crystal of water,
Edged on the fallen, brown leaves of October
Strewn across the forest floor,
Where sparrows flit among the naked branches.

Have you tasted moonlight?
Have you held conversation with the barking squirrel?
Have you tempted lightning, a dervish in empty beanfields?

Have you emptied yourself into the cold blue mud
Beneath fifteen feet of water in a summer pond
That begins softly, like yogurt from the icebox,
Hardening gently in its depths,
With prickly incidence of stick and leaf, long residents of cold Hades,
Once citizens of rain and wind and sunlight and thunderstorm,
Atop the thick, canopy of life that stretches eternally toward the sun,
Who touch my toes,
Poking in still stiff hardness, melting into cold sludge,
Two feet down, or three, past the knee?


I must tell these things to you.
I must find them, in solitude.

Ape Man

There are times I think
I would like to lie down in the detritus
As the animals do, beneath a canopy of trees,
To sleep and dream without thinking of yesterday or tomorrow,
To roll onto my side, leaves sticking to my back,
Eating grass and bugs and grubs,
And millions of acorns,
That shower from the trees above my head,
Beard growing thick, hair growing long,
Taking long drinks from the streams,
Resting in Eden as Adam did.

Instead, I will maintain my lawn on the sabbath morning,
In time to watch the baseball game that starts at two
On a television I bought from Wal-Mart,
Where also I purchased potato salad and hot dogs
That I will scorch on blue propane flames,
Upon a grill I bought from Wal-Mart, too,
And later in the afternoon,
We will drive to eat ice cream
Made from sugar, milk, and coal,
Taking in a movie in the evening,
With popcorn, flavored oils, and strawberry flavored Twizzlers.

In the morning I will rise early to celebrate the resurrection of the Lord,
And thank him for saving me from death.

Another Good Friday

It may be that death has come

To rest upon us.

It may be that life will triumph

Over all.

It may be that I will also die

Sooner than later.

In any case,

The Rapture has come and gone,

And we are left,

To wait another thousand years.

Talisman

I've picked you up and placed you in my pocket,
Where I've carried you for quite some time, now.
Do you feel secure in my possession?

You are magical, and beautiful,
Imbued with charms and luxuriousness,
Held neatly in the palm of my hand.

I'll carry you with me, graceful diamond,
Warder of Evil, Steward of Grace,
You will not escape my protection, nor I yours.

Charm me, Mistress of Mercy,
Sparkle like the eyes of Diana
In the blackness of night.

I will clasp you tightly in my fist,
Safe from thieves who roam the empty streets.
Bless me with your love and protection.

Offer me courage and good fortune through all my days.
I will keep you with me forever,
Hidden safely, near the beating of my heart.

Magdalene

Would it have been better

If Christ had taken you quietly

Into his home,

And there made love to you,

Carpenter, and father of children

You would bear for him?

Would it have been preferable

If Christ had put aside his stories

To help Martha in the kitchen,

Tending to the needs of visitors,

Servile and humiliated,

Washing feet before his time?

Would it have been better

If Moses had been left alone

Without sister to raise him

Among the teachers of the Nile,

To remind him of the songs of his family,

Of tambourines and dancing?

Why did you kiss his feet with salt tears?

Why did you follow him to the Promised Land?

Why did you stand before the cross

And place his dead body into the tomb?

What did he mean to you,

And you to him?

Wished-for Child,

Well of Bitterness,

Beloved of the Sun,

Daughter of the Moon,

Virgin Whore,

Mother of God,

What example Christ to give you nothing but compassion?

What example Christ to speak into your hearts?

What example Christ to rebuke those who rebuke you,

As you wash his feet with perfume, tears, and the locks of your long hair?

What do you want from me?

What shall we give to each other?

Nietzsche Always Gets the Girl

Tonight is the way of the mind-will. 

I can't find my way in,

But know I must try.

Other times it crawls from my chest,

Like a spirit baby that punches right through my breastbone.

Tonight is like that time I was sitting on the couch next to that pretty girl,

When I was 13.

Nothing ever happened.

Other times I don't even have to try:

She knocks me down and sucks the life right from my lungs.

Tonight I read back through these lines and think to myself

That I am not getting anywhere.

Why do I even try?

Other times I will read this and be happy

That I did. 

---------------------

You are beautiful,

And I love your eyes.

Dance with me.

The First Words Given to My Brother's Son

For Stone:

You have many fathers and mothers,

And you will never be alone.

Do not fall in with those who look to the Heavens,

Keep your eyes planted in the Earth.

Prepare for the day your brother's sons come to you,

Seeking God, and ask them:

Do you not see my face?

Do you not feel my hands?

Your father was a gardener,

Who pulled you from the ground with much toiling.

He chose your grandfather's name for you

And for your mother,

Who taught us to live upon the Earth a while,

To eat what comes from the ground,

Taking pain and pleasure together,

Concerned more for life to be than lives to come. 

Walk with us upon this solid kingdom,

Where living is no more nor less than dying.

Know Whitman, Blake, and Ginsberg;

Grow mushrooms, vines, and grass.

And when you grow tired,

Find your fathers and mothers here with me,

Resting awhile in the sod,

Safely in the mines of god.

The Shepherdess

Sing in me, daughter muse,
Goddess of beauty and charm,
Creativity and good cheer,
Lay your bounty upon the table,

Luxuriously, like the sister of Bouguereau,
With the brown frock around her waist,
Hips swung wide and fertile,
As Prenses Banu.

Are you a sign from God?
Are you his lamb?
Does the dew soak into you
And leave the ground dry?

Does his presence rest on you,
Daughter of suffering?
Will he wring you out
To fill his bowl?

Permit me, sister,
To touch your womb:
Just one request
I make of you.

Will you spend the night alone?
Will you rest on a rock?
Will you be sheltered
From raging storms?

Anointed One,
With dew from heaven,
Lamb of God,
Sign of deliverance,

Who bears eternal fruit
Beneath your supple skin.