We are Starved

Therefore That He May Raise, the Lord Throws Down

12 WE WILL BE FED UPON, WE WILL BE FED Not what has been eaten but what eats. The starved horse in the meadow near the abandoned farmhouse. It has almost nothing of itself left. And to feed it rotten hay would finally end the pastoral scene. Or animal. Or whatever it is that is already dying here in front of us. “Coming through slaughter.” What you say when you talk about your past. Who was chosen and who was not. 13 Why, of your entire family, only you survive. Your mother’s liver, your brother drowned in Alaska, the tumor found in your father’s head, all the cousins in car accidents and prison. And what you say now, when speaking of them, not yet convinced, I’m an orphan. And when you are alone, stroking the horse’s forehead, feeding it damp hay from the ruined barn, I hear you whispering, my pain will lessen if you eat me, my hunger too will abate. 14 LANGUOR, SUCCOR, ARDOR To speak of Christ as a stillborn child seems, well, right. Or so the nurse assures me. Such a short amount of life and yet life everlasting. And the adoration that accompanies him is one of wishing for more—those lost days, those last days. A single day. Here you are. Have another, my mother says, when will you have another? And the poems about children dying, I am always reading poems about children dying. Like the one where Christ drowns the lords’ and ladies’ sons. They deserved it. And this makes things better. For a while, almost human. As if we understood, finally and just this once, one another. ~ There is so much grieving in the world. Have you forgotten? My neighbor tells me it is God’s will. But the world is suddener than any idea about the world. Like the mother who kills her four newborns and hides their remains in a closet. ...