By Zac Yang
Artwork by Zac Yang
how many hours of this endless rain
and dreary night,
this starry, silent sky,
this vain and tiring life.
after you die
they will make beaches on your graves.
may strange flowers bloom in the Holy Land.
where she once walked with so much care in hand.
but fie on fie,
a flickering light,
on the way to the forgotten land,
mighty Bethlehem.
through the rubbles through the crumbs,
she makes it to the last standing hub,
her husband had died on the way,
and so gone was their little moke.
mother sits with her rounded belly,
her tired prayer like fruitless tallies,
canons boom in the distant valleys.
a fire strikes down the stable hays,
it burns away
into ashes gray,
as day turns night turns day
with light,
from the sky,
in the flames,
in the phosphorous rains.
as she laid cold on the crumbled floor,
her virgin blood sank into the concrete lawn,
through the cracks and soils,
to the olive trees.
no ox, no hay, no manger with straws,
but the ashes of warplanes through the burning halls,
but the shadow of cherubim on the last church wall,
but the hands of the mother tied to the floor,
the mountains of youths left rotting in holes,
the red burning hills where the olives had once grown.
a cry could be heard
in the Jerusalem walls.
through blood through flesh
the messiah is born.
baptized at birth
in fires and gores
he climbed out of his cave
his cradle grave,
the dead womb of the mother,
in her maiden name.
dragging her behind with an un-breaking tie,
he climbed through the ruins,
through the burning homes,
through the malls and walls,
of the world that moans.
a burning ache torches a Holy Heart
as he plucks out his his eyes
with his infant hands.
as blood drip down
through his tender palms,
through his
legs and arms,
as he hands them over,
to your friendly palms
to your cold, white hands
of neighbors feigned.
Take my blood.
It will be that of yours.
Take my eyes.
It will make you bright.
Eli, Eli,
lema sabachthani.
have you ever seen a rotten face.
scattered around some mountainous graves.
when all their humanities,
in the melting flesh
are washed away to the shores of cast,
leaving only the faces
of horrors last,
of the dreadful masks of death,
choking in sand,
carved eternally
into their skulls.
soaked into bones.
cut into time.
cut into words that shall never be past:
please.
please.
remember me.
adieu.
adieu.
remember me.
duller,
shouldst thou be
than the fat weed
That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf
Wouldst thou not stir in this.
Wherefore, my beloved.
as ye have always obeyed.
not as in my presence only,
but now much more in my absence.
work out your salvation
with fear and trembling.
For the eye through which you see me
is the same one I see you.
One eye.
one seeing,
one knowing,
one love.
Come and see. The angels of being.
The root and the offspring, and the bright morning star.
In his land, in him, set him free.
Behold,
He is coming
through the silent wind.