Poetry

MIDIAN

by Walter Boswell
11/27/18
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Midian

                                Come no nearer, please,

for whereon you tread is sacred doubt.

                                                Worthless before my God …

I must hide in the shadow of a hurt

                lest a bush should light

                                and fiery launch remembrance

of        again              a hollow soul and a dry spirit –

                make straight my fate before the Lord.

From out of the sheepcote called …

                to worry the unkind God;

                                neglecting his charge.

                                But who am I,

                who am I to say, how long?

How long until the dispensary of fatal compression

                brings incision to infected wounds,

                                prevails in saving

                who was taken aback by his mission,

the sinning of his days,

                                still fasting, still praying,

                still preaching alone in the wilderness?

So Seeming

The fog-rain

                breezes down in shaded vision

                                through highlights of hard carry.

                Objects, so seeming, heavy and light,

                                leaves here and lost.

Left to wander wonders

                                in muddy resolution,

seeking the earnestness to verse these gains (so seeming).

                Better to mark the day …               sharply

                                whet the darkness of my doubts,

                whittle down the high beams of rationality –

                                                fine standards, so seeming.

                More like sponsorless waifs

if only he has given us his only son,

                and only trials to follow, so seeming.

Ceremony

Shredded are the wafers of our vaunted church service,

encased is the smoke of its tired sacrament; robed in naked worship.

They abhorred my gifts,         therefore

                I destroyed within myself

                                that which they deemed valueless.

– So much the delivered of transfusions, and confessions,

                and playing cuts to his organ recital,

                                                the amputations and scars,

                doctors would call him lifeless as sin.

                                Yet I have not full patience spent.

 – So much the wine keg that has taken too many vintages to term,

                even the spout curdles, standing up to the pour,

                                                and sours the glass to drink.

                                Yet for another season let age.

– So much in the throes of winter,

                he turns a warm shoulder unto damnation fire.

                Amidst the burning of their human analogues,

                                yet maybe even fractured stone will heal.

Dr. Walter Boswell

wboswell58@hotmail.com