the world a letter

An old poem I'd forgotten writing.




Job Restored

You would very likely look down through me and see
Earth, though I'm not sure I remember: it was
solid looking as water at dusk, as water
it held nothing solid for long.
The clouds themselves dipped down at dawn, inspired it.
Forget all that. My long sack
of food will trail uselessly to my right
as I sink when I sink and my sinking
will bring me round closer: not to myself, that is for my sons:
to you, father, that you may be whole in death,
in memory dust the insubstantial earth
down to the backs of praise-god, our holy father.
Even at noon, his demands fall more strongly than light:
and to hug the pain in-open is to become
what is less solid than falling: a cloud through a cloud:
to release you, o father: yet
these were our words: listen,
for I have suffered breadths of pain past remembering:
unproportioned, my world gone, restored to praise-god's,
again restored to insubstantial earth.
I remember . . . I remember . . . being . . .
father, even now, I have less than you.