Stand
He has filled me with bitterness.
He has saturated me with wormwood.
My soul is rejected from peace,
I have forgotten goodness.
(Lamentations, 3:15,17)
Stand before your God
in your naked fury,
drenched in tears.
Demand that God look upon you.
look! you cry, look!
slapping your chest
and smearing the blood
on your hands with
the salty fluids there,
look at me!
Then: no words, and God
hears what you hear come
from your throat–
your weeping mixed with bugle call,
your wailing stirred with sirens,
your growls with rattling gunfire,
your groans with the groans
of the wounded.
Stand before your God
in your naked fury
in a piety of intimate rage.