The silence which would come after
the breaking of that seal
was my babe in her being;
The dreading and the awe; The christening in God’s grand ritual.
She stands at the mouth of this awful plan
My babe, handing the trumpets with solemn apathy.

   And the rivers of blood are my babe,
       And the plagues that punish are my babe

And nothing comes of begging,
Of pleading for some undeserved mercy
Because my babe is the birth,
and my babe is the end.

My babe is the wing, the fall doused in sleep
And the euphoria of sin, ephemera of earth
The dying and rising of the tides, their gentleness and their bringing.
The silence and the peace as it turns to blood;
The wave’s wine-loved singsong.

My gentle lover, who held my hand and led me into the waters.
My muddied huntress
who would **** the woodland babes
with dagger and ruthless compassion
to feed me rabbit stew
those sickly nights.

God, God, Were you not all merciful and good?
Release her from your taking,
Drop her from your unforgiving claws,
You; Beast of my life, Slithering King.
There is no end truer than that which you’ve done to me–
Your measly bringing of the end times
shines dim beside the fires of my grief.

Take me to the end of the earth,
Take me into your everlasting loving
My sun, chosen thing of God
who looks at me from a dark cloud;
My babe, In her solemn apathy,
My babe, In the quiet glistening of
her wet cheek.

O Lover, full of grace,
Death servant and God-taken;

       I’ll die. I’ll die.

    My babe, the Lion.
  My babe, the Lamb.