YOUR GOD IS INDEED A GREAT MAGICIAN
Ah, this rolling blue globe—
so nobly fashioned, so grandly displayed!
From mountains majestic, sweet waters cascade
o’er flowers that tower o’er beetle and blade,
o’er horrors that harrow, like earth meeting *****.
Newborns like produce, aligned and arrayed
like bluing cadavers—
IN WHOSE IMAGE MADE!
These are factors, my friend!
We roll all our lives to the black bitter end.
Lord, why must Thy children rummage,
famish, and perish in Thy plenitude!
Why must good men stream stalwart to gray?
Are we mortals so unworthy of Thy great giving Hand?
So undeserving of Thy tending? How then may we please Thee?
Thou art truly a great Prestidigitator!
Such skill Thou evince, such finesse Thou command!
Let our wretched hearts join, let us marvel Thy sleight—
blood out of bedlam, plague out of mist,
babies in ******* relieved by Thy Fist.
O Master of magic, an awesome Conjurer are Thee!
Inspired are Thine antics; too practiced for sluggards as we.
Thy shills gather round and, as rubes beg to serve,
Thy emphasis thrills, Thy daring unnerves.
The boggling breadth of Thy legerdemain
bewitches the senses, bedevils the brain.
Observe:
Grim maids awaiting their loves gone to war—
a snap of Thy Fingers! These maids wait no more!
Thou art too fleet for guesswork; the moves are all Thine.
What thing of mere flesh could divine the Divine?
Your God is a wizard. Such prowess hath He!
Tsunamis, deluges—whipped straight from the sea!
Histories buried, whole peoples bled,
broken, departed. The doomed and the dead,
beseech His forgiveness from one common knee.
Yea, blessed are we! Be we sick or insane,
be we rife with contagion, be we lovelorn or lame.
O Great Benefactor…just SHOW! Accept our acclaim!
How can we thank Thee, repay Thee, how may we proclaim
Thine Image as Perfect, as Perfect Thy name.
Thou art Hero and Handler—how, Master, do we,
with raw voice revere thee, with swollen soles tread
the stars whence Thou ventured, the slime whence we came.
Forgive us our shame! We have failed Thee sorely.
Wherever Thou art, prithee…reveal Thyself.
Heal us, thrill us, amuse us some more;
Thine antics amaze us, Thine exploits astound.
The fruit of Thy labors in ripe fields abound.
Fruit reaping fruit reaping fruit of its own.
Laborers, ripe, ablaze in the sun,
too worn by their toils, too torn to atone,
their spent bodies ripe for that Magic You do.
O Father Who made us, Who taught us to heel,
We thank Thee for roaches, for each rash and wheal,
for hormones like lashes that drive us to sin.
The Big Dark approaches—what price to get in?
For all this, Dear Maestro, we clamor and kneel,
clapping in time to that Magic we feel.
Though we warble off-key, more than grateful are we
for plagues, flames, and rubble, for death and debris,
for tumors and blood clots and rumors of boils,
for madmen encroaching from alien soils.
Nay, astonished are we, overwhelmed by He—
He who maketh Himself invisible,
unreachable, immeasurable, untouchable, unsearchable,
unflappable, inculpable, impalpable, improbable…
and never even once witnessed! Not even once ever seen—
Genius! Unknowable, indeed, to mind or machine:
too fickle to fathom, too abstract to read.
Yet He is Poet, He is Artist, He is King above kings!
And for this we adore him o’er all other things—
o’er forests and canyons, o’er rivers and glens—
Yea, for all these momentous, magnanimous,
multitudinous, miraculous…ah, such depth and detail!
All the works of man pale, blaze briefly and fail,
like bugs on a slide ’neath Thy Almighty lens.
These are factors, my friend!
Whether magic or miracle or blind nature’s trend,
we roll all our lives to the black bitter end.
Copyright 2019
contact Ron Sanders at:
ronsandersartofprose(at)yahoo(dot)com
