Outside the hotel window, unenlightened pigeons
weave and dive like Stukas on their prey,
apparently some tiny insect brother.
(In India, the attainment of nonviolence
is considered a proper goal for human beings.)
If one of the pigeons should fly into the illusion
can go to Bible study every Sunday
and swear she’ s still not convinced,
but she likes to be around people who are.
We have the same conversation
every few years — I’ ll ask her if she stops
to admire the perfect leaves
of the Japanese maple
she waters in her backyard,
or tell her how I can gaze for hours
at a desert sky and know this
as divine. Nature, she says,
doesn’ t hold her interest. Not nearly
as much as the greens, pinks, and grays
of a Diebenkorn abstract, or the antique
a labyrinth,
as if at its center,
god would be there —
but at the center, only rose,
where rose came from,
where rose grows —
& us, inside of the lips & lips:
the likenesses, the eyes, & the hair,
we are born of,
fed by, & marry with,
only flesh itself, only its passage
— out of where? to where?
Then god the mother said to Jim, in a dream,
Never mind you, Jim,
come rest again on the country porch of my knees.
Today I’ m thinking of St. Paul — St. Paul,
who orders us, Be perfect. He could have said,
Touch your elbow to your ears, except
that if you broke your arm, then snapped your neck,
you might could manage it. The death inside
the flawed hard currency of what we touch
bamboozles us, existing only for that flaw,
Over the border the barrier winds,
devouring orchards of various kinds.
Cursed be he that taketh away
the landmark of his neighbor.
And all the people shall say, Amen.
The road was blocked in a battle of wills —
as the lame and sightless trudged through the hills.
Cursed be he that maketh the blind
to go astray in the way.
And all the people shall say, Amen.
I was passionate,
filled with longing,
I searched
far and wide.
But the day
that the Truthful One
found me,
I was at home.
The great sea
frees me, moves me,
as a strong river carries a weed.
Earth and her strong winds
move me, take me away,
and my soul is swept up in joy.
O my Lord,
if I worship you
from fear of hell, burn me in hell.
If I worship you
from hope of Paradise, bar me from its gates.
But if I worship you
for yourself alone, grant me then the beauty of your Face.
Of all that God has shown me
I can speak just the smallest word,
Nor more than a honey bee
Takes on his foot
From an overspilling jar.
Someone’ s coming
from the other world.
Hiss of night rain.
Someone’ s going there now.
The two are sure to meet.
Translated from the Korean
