brothers

(being a conversation in eight poems between an aged Lucifer and God, though only Lucifer is heard. The time is long after.) 

1 
invitation 

come coil with me 
here in creation’s bed 
among the twigs and ribbons 
of the past. i have grown old 
remembering the garden,
the hum of the great cats 
moving into language, the sweet 
fume of the man’s rib 
as it rose up and began to walk. 
it was all glory then, 
the winged creatures leaping 
like angels, the oceans claiming 
their own. let us rest here a time 
like two old brothers
who watched it happen and wondered
what it meant. 

2 
how great Thou art 

listen. 
You are beyond 
even Your own understanding. 
that rib and rain and clay 
in all its pride, 
its unsteady dominion, 
is not what you believed
You were,
but it is what You are; 
in your own image as some 
lexicographer supposed. 
the face, both he and she, 
the odd ambition, the desire 
to reach beyond the stars 
is You. all You, all You 
the loneliness, the perfect 
imperfection.

3
as for myself

less snake than angel 
less angel than man 
how come i to this 
serpent’s understanding? 
watching creation from
a hood of leaves
i have foreseen the evening
of the world.
as sure as she 
the breast of Yourself 
separated out and made to bear, 
as sure as her returning, 
i too am blessed with 
the one gift You cherish; 
to feel the living move in me 
and to be unafraid.

4 
in my own defense 

 what could I choose 
but to slide along behind them, 
they whose only sin 
was being their father’s children? 
as they stood with their backs 
to the garden, 
a new and terrible luster 
burning their eyes, 
only You could have called 
their ineffable names, 
only in their fever 
could they have failed to hear.

5 
the road led from delight 

into delight. into the sharp 
edge of seasons, into the sweet 
puff of bread baking, the warm 
vale of sheet and sweat after love, 
the tinny newborn cry of calf 
and cormorant and humankind. 
and pain, of course, 
always there was some bleeding, 
but forbid me not 
my meditation on the outer world 
before the rest of it, before 
the bruising of his heel, my head, 
and so forth.

6 
“the silence of God is God.” —Carolyn Forch

tell me, tell us why 
in the confusion of a mountain 
of babies stacked like cordwood, 
of limbs walking away from each other, 
of tongues bitten through 
by the language of assault, 
tell me, tell us why 
You neither raised your hand 
Nor turned away, tell us why 
You watched the excommunication of 
That world and You said nothing. 

7 
still there is mercy, there is grace

how otherwise 
could I have come to this 
marble spinning in space 
propelled by the great
thumb of the universe?
how otherwise 
could the two roads 
of this tongue 
converge into a single 
certitude? 
how otherwise 
could I, a sleek old 
traveler, 
curl one day safe and still 
beside YOU 
at Your feet, perhaps, 
but, amen, Yours.

8 
“.........is God.”

so. 
having no need to speak 
You sent Your tongue 
splintered into angels. 
even I, 
with my little piece of it 
have said too much. 
to ask You to explain 
is to deny You. 
before the word 
You were. 
You kiss my brother mouth. 
the rest is silence.

--Lucille Clifton (1936-2010), African American poet, teacher, and professor, from The Book of Light, 1993.

Scripture reference: Romans 5:12-19, Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7, Lent 1A