Poetry

THE 4 TESTAMENTS

by Walter Boswell
02/19/19
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The 4 Testaments

Distilling the matter of things,

dipping heavily into one’s own concoction of infirmity,

                dazed and stuporous, rowdy and       suddenly sick –

                                                coming back to quiet sin;

plying within myself to know what good the good is,

                                devoid a confirmation grade,

                apart from anyone granted a performance glimpse.

Even the animals have green things to eat;

                even the plants have sunshine;

                even the mold thrives in the darkness of bio-decay;

whereas this spirit has nothing like it(self) to feed upon.

Who shall be father to these people

                since the tablets of Sinai are broken?

Who shall be brother to these people

                since Christ has gone the way of Calvary?

Who shall be child to these people

                since none believes in less than immaculate conception?

Who shall be god to these people

                since the crown of heaven is splintered at its crest?

A Testament old, a Testament new;

A Testament borrowed, a Testament blue.

Life

From a fall screen            late summer flies

                give wing  to quick vain lives.

It was supposed to travel duty-free

                with all the import of foreign charity,

                                with all the hope of love –

                                                only not as tangible,

                not as smelly as winter’s last kill;

                                these creatures from out the flesh

                to feed upon the strength of buffaloes

                                and call themselves alive …

                before the coming of the next fall wind

                                drives them once more underground.

The Lord has not yet begun his sharing:

                after all the wings have flown,

                after all the plants uprooted;

                when all the stumps are extracted,

                                even a living dust shall rise.

New Year’s

Another yearly run-in with time,

                in a calendar of lost dates

                                and seasons dying.

What am I, ‘cept a semblance of the Lord, my Father,

                without a spirit, unable to age, unable to move?

A child sent west on a north-south track,

                aboard a rail with no siding, and

                        no stay of scheduled departure.

It was never my house to remember,

my picture model to retain,

                for kin to visit the unfamiliar,

for crystal virtue, lame wheelchairs,

or silverware for the medal eating.

In the shadow of the valley of death

                is omnipresent home to me.

Dr. Walter Boswell

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