“Votive Tablet” and “Heaven”

Theodicy I’m not asking for proof or an alibi, but when Your name comes up at accidents it would help to know what we’re dealing with— wind that got away? The fact of ice, black ice even, as risks crystallize? Or is it . . . us? As if the precipice isn’t there until we look down; as if —what? Doubt could add risk. So could denial: Wildfires? Natural disasters? Or the avalanche of setbacks, disappointments, even harm. Acquit Yourself! Dismiss the charges! Or, when You judge, call me to the bench; put Your hand over the mic so the others won’t hear, and You won’t have to whisper. for Mark Walters ßToby Goostree Author biography Toby Goostree’s poems have appeared in Santa Clara Review, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Kansas City Voices and By and By Poetry. He lives in Kansas City with his wife, Amy. ‘‘Votive Tablet’’ and ‘‘Heaven’’ VOTIVE TABLET From the mouth of the boy the dove flutters in a circle and quickly hides in the mouth of his mother under the open dome Poetry 707 shining in the thundering clouds: where the capsizing sailors promised vessels and precious goblets if the boy would rescue them from the steep side of the brazen mountain, the dove fluttering from his mouth, circling and quickly hiding in his mother’s smiling mouth. Translated, from the German, by Stuart Friebert, with Christiane Wyrwa ßKuno Raeber HEAVEN The elephants, the whales pant and puff through the savannah above. The Huns and Saint Ursula below carry out their horror show: eleven thousand virgins and Pope Formosus beheaded! The elephants, the whales aren’t interested in panel-paintings and pant and puff above on their blue rotations through the savannah even now, because below just reliquaries remain from the slaughter. Translated, from the German, by Stuart Friebert, with Christiane Wyrwa ßKuno Raeber Author biography Kuno Raeber (1922–1992): An early member of the ‘‘Gruppe 47,’’ by the time of his death Raeber had won a number of prestigious literary prizes and produced a commanding body of poems, stories, novels, plays, essays, and translations, recently collected in a seven-volume edition, edited by Matthias Klein and Christiane Wyrwa, who contributed valuable suggestions for improving the translations . Great thanks to them and scaneg Verlag/Munich, their press, for permission to publish these poems, which will soon appear in VOTIVES: Selected Poems from the Literary Remains (Lost Horse Press). Among a dozen volumes, Stuart Friebert has previously published two earlier Selected Raebers, as well as fourteen books of his own poems and two collections of stories. 708 Christianity & Literature 66(4) ...