and the next book starts here I guess

[apiphile]

there are no good books

yearning is the creed of abraham
the three desert faiths that walked the world
all passionately demanding the presence of an absent god
putting yearning in the bones of their sons and daughters
teaching them that to love is to feel a separation
like a lamb taken from its mother
like a people taken from its land
like a mind cleft from its body

before the virus came to my islands
carried in greek and latin
on the hides of the dead
did my ancestors yearn for absent gods
or did they feel the presence of holiness
in every leaf and branch; did they know the wells were holy
in and of themselves
did they see holiness in the marrow of the horses that they ate
did they touch divinity in diseases that laid them down
beneath the clay; one day to be found by the soul-sick converts
who now dictate
what love means?

before the faith taken out of place
said love was burning like a bush in the heart
to touch the absent face
before the desert's teachings taught
the rainy lands that thirst was necessary
for faith
before those in love with separations
had their thoughts transported
by the kings of conquest
i don't think
deprivation was the root of succour

it is that garden i wish to return to
this fruit that i have looked for;
i can no longer love the images of love
that tell me to long passionately for that
which cannot be possessed.

Comments

[wolfy_writing]

Ooh, I really like this! And the whole thing where environment shapes faith fascinates me.

[apiphile]

Reading back over it I realise I've done a fair amount of consonance and assonance completely instinctively with my word choices, even though there's no full line-end rhymes.

[wolfy_writing]

Yeah, it gives the whole thing a quality that makes it work well as a poem.

[gool_duck]

I read this poem. I like it.