PSALM 151
At night our bodies nearly touch in the big bed the goosedown comforter feels as
light as the hand of God
I remember a smaller one in a different house where I slept alone in fear without
others with others
I say light because God has no hands nothing except the world to define Him
whatever we may say
Nights are always equally dark but the mind has degrees chocolate tar coal
taffeta open grave thoughts that panic the unwary
But I don’t care what it means as long as it continues or maybe I should say I
believe the afterlife is right now since this moment need not be
Belief! what a word the only one that really applies to everything as Nietzsche
knew and Freud who destroyed the word forever
Of course it all depends on who you listen to or refuse to listen to I’d like to be
able to do both at once
Listen with calm attentive compassion and not hear anyone’s words which
might be the one way to cure grief
Over the way things are over not being able to accept the way things are the way
things are is God
Constantly on the threshold of revelation lamenting all raising hymns to all
Some days it’s true even the coffee grounds are sacred nose hairs snot lint equal to
the most exquisite blazing yellow leaf ruined soon where sweet birds sing
And in the midst of whatever might be deemed agonizing irremediable the world
continues to give itself exactly as it is
For love of the earth is inescapable in surrender and who we are and what is are
one no thought can contradict the peace of that perception
— Stephen Berg
Stephen Berg, who in his long career in poetry has drawn on both his Jewish background and Zen Buddhist thought, embraces both in “To You,” a meditation in 13 extended lines, their long loops of language juxtaposed without punctuation, suggesting the stream of thought bumping against thought. Berg, who lives in Philadelphia, is the author of many books of poetry — including most recently “X=”(University of Illinois Press, 2003). He is also an active translator, and the co-founder and editor of the American Poetry Review.
In “To You,” we read nighttime thoughts, nighttime contemplations, the poet “in the big bed” still awake, remembering perhaps his childhood “in a smaller one in a different house,” and reflecting on a simile “light as the hand of God.” For the poet, at least, God is defined not by any dogma or fixed set of beliefs, but by the world and by consciousness, for “the mind has degrees” and gradations. By the end of the poem, he seems, at least temporarily, to have resolved the difficulty of belief: “who we are and what is are one,” a statement that fits nicely with Zen Buddhist thought while echoing the affirmation of the Shema.
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