And God spoke through Jeremiah
When I was alone and the universe was dark,
I caught in my finger a splinter of star;
I called for a light and Wisdom drew near.
She teased out the Earth, the Sun and Moon,
we watched each one of you form in the womb,
planted a garden you could water and prune.
You pictured me up in the fiery firmament,
speaking words of solemn covenant:
“Live in my image and manage creation
and I will bless you my chosen children”.
And Wisdom taught your seers and prophets
to give back a tenth of every harvest;
so, you worshipped me with your muddy hands
while she counted every grain of sand.
But then you thought more of what you could take,
what you could threaten, what you could fake,
for the sake of a tribe, a people, a state.
I became the god of just your nation,
its journey and empire, its justification.
I had been the Lord of all creation.
So, you made your idols of wood and metal
from oldest trees and rarest minerals;
gorged yourselves on precious animals.
Go back to the deserts and gawp at your error:
you’ve warmed the seas and the locusts gather;
stand in the forests and witness your crime:
trees burnt down for bullocks and swine.
Row your rivers of blood and oil,
plough your fields of poisoned soil,
stand on the watchtower if you dare
to hear your children choke on the air.
Brace up! Acknowledge these ways are redundant,
sit with your prophets and write a new covenant;
sacrifice just a little of your skin
(we are not too old nor too young to begin).
Confess your faults and make a new start,
let Wisdom put new laws in your heart
to feed the poor and heal the earth.
Then forests will bloom like requited love,
the sky will be a pure heaven above
and the deserts will sup living waters.
Your limbs will be stronger though you eat far less,
though you give up idols you will be blessed,
you will run and run faster with every breath.
And I will be Truth, for you will speak it;
I shall be Love, for you shall share it;
if you are righteous, I will give you faith.
But, if you continue to worship idols,
trust in your bloody, stolen jewels
and the shepherds who know you as fools;
then those you left outside your deals,
who live with locusts in scorched fields,
will harvest spears and gather shields.
From the watchtower a trumpet sounds,
but where are the shepherds to lay themselves down?
You look aghast. Your leaders frown.
They march away to the holiest altar,
kneel before priests who solemnly answer
in pressed sack-cloth and belts of leather,
“Our God saves with jealous anger,
smoke and fire, pitch and sulphur,
so let us split the star-dust splinter!”
a bomb bursts brighter than a thousand suns,
its cloud claws higher than frightened falcons,
its wind rushes wilder than your unsaddled stallions,
the lion burns with the lamb.
“I looked upon the earth, and it was waste and void;
mountains had crumbled into the sea
and the heavens could give no light.
I looked and all the birds of the air had fled,
the fruitful land was as a desert,
and all the cities of human-kind were in ruins”
There are no more priests at the altar of the Lord,
no bread, nor wine, not even thorns.
Wisdom is there, she calls to me once more,
“Let us take these bones from out of their tombs,
lay them out before the sun and moon,
for their ears didn’t hear, their eyes didn’t see,
they cried, “Peace, Peace!”, when there was no peace.
In winter even the ravens would migrate
to build new nests and find new ways;
these bones walked the moon, their probes touched the sun,
but they could not change when change had come!”.
Wisdom is gone now, a speck in the darkness.
My restless Spirit, lonely and loveless,
broods upon the face of the Deep.
2020