Devastation in Speaking with God
A while ago I read in the newspaper about a mother who, under instruction from God as she claimed, cut off her infant daughter’s arms and legs and left her under a bush in the yard to bleed to death. She called her husband to tell him what she had done. Here is a sonnet I wrote concerning the matter.
I ask you, do you know your daughter’s fate
or guess in what green pasture she now lies?
She’s hiding in the rhododendron shade
and fatt’ning earth — her little life abates,
goes mingling with the mud — nor asks she why.
I smell the same shy scent in her spilt blood
as honeysuckle when the day grows late.
My dear, I swear, a choir of ascending
voices has sung this bright command to me,
as when Abraham took Isaac to the hills . . .
and knowing only the All-Father’s love
could match a mother’s plea . . . Bless me, for when
they break down the door (those legions of them)
they’ll find me, knife in hand, humming a hymn.
That is a briliant poem. The kind of poem that leaves nothing to say but brilliant! And it sounds so beautiful read and has the idea so full and close within it, magnificent,