Trembling in the throne room of
The Most High, wondrous King
Encircled by the holy ones
who hallow Your will
And hide their faces under burnished wings
Who can stand
Amidst the fire and smoke? -
The revel-racked train of Your wending robe?
That surges across the sapphire sea
Of firmament glass, where sabbaths
Your star-trodden feet
And burns its path to the undoing of me
The pious and riotous pounding
What sounding! Of praise, and of pinions,
And prayers of droves;
Wine-dark utterings of old,
Hidden kennings of secret things cellared
To be found in Your glory-steeped trove.
And the fresh, silvered smolder-glow
Curling and whorling its scent; Hot, holy coals.
Redolent still of the best man can rend with his eyes:
The pleasing aroma of resin-crushed pride,
Grief-wrung poverty You will not despise.
I should be slain. Bones licked
by the flames, soul sundered
awry from His presence -
A foundling of wrath and of shame.
I, like Abraham’s Isaac,
(Your friend’s One and Only)
Fumble up the hill, wood on my frame.
Too feeble to tread, too finite to bear
the glorious heft of The Name
Your eyes saw the death knell due
Duly earning true Justice
And for us -
On the Mount was provided the same
Pleased to wrap me round, spangled down, enrobed
in gleaming white-
I can boldly stand by faith among the Council
Arrayed in righteousness by Your One and Only Son,
Jesus Christ