The Exterminating Angel

I've had better nights. But I know enough by now to share hours I could spend tossing with, as I did between 2 and 4 this morning, lull-bringers like first Aaron Copland and Virgil Thompson then Frederick Chopin. Just in case you are bothered tonight by apocalypse or toothache or lightning-fears or love, may I suggest putting Chopin's Nocturnes, as transcendently played by Maria Joao Pires or Ivan Moravec, on your iPod docking station.

In the mean time, for your reading pleasure or perhaps pain, here's a poem finished yesterday that I intend to post at my blog after I send this to all of you. My friend Monique sent me a YouTube link of a video in which we see "miraculous" sightings of the name Allah written on every conceivable surface that could host such glorious graffiti. It made me wonder about sightings of the home-team God's name in a world grown much too small for religion. In such a world, every Paris is someone else's Sodom; Jerusalem is a baby Solomon is asked to cut in half. Cities are set on fire always in the name of one of God's multitudinous names. We ought to retire some of those names. God could be deemed Number 23, and put behind glass like Michael Jordan's tank top; Yahweh could be considered one of God's longest-lasting brand names and perched like Hank Aaron's final signed home run ball atop a pedestal in some Religion Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. Then we could find and celebrate the God we have and hold in common who has as many names as there are in Kingdom Earth's latest census--plus One. It is that All and Entirety--the complete Humanity of all living things--whose name I cite and recite, vowing their combined sacredness. So if I am meant to see Allah's or Yahweh's name braided in corn tassels today at a farmer's market, pardon me if I plead illiteracy and continue reading into all things some greater visual, visible summons and summation.

THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL

1

God's been skywriting again.

Bedouins report seeing His Allah-alias

scrawled repeatedly on a blackboard sky

by Arabic-speaking lightning

several times after a Sahara sand storm.

One eye witness described it as such:

"Each time His name hovered like a flare,

throbbing with brightness

accompanied by what sounded like

a sizzle of fireworks

mixed with the crackle

of gunfire."

2

God's been leaving signs again.

A busload of Kansas penitents

report seeing a torn Bible page

blown against the windshield

fastened by wind and wiper blades,

the only thing visible

in a driving, drumming rain.

"Agnes, look, at the bottom corner.

It's just as foretold in John 7:

out of the belly of a cloud

will flow rivers of living water."

The deluge was cut short

when the bus skidded off a bridge

into the icy river below.

Only one of the 12 occupants survived.

When asked why her, she answered,

"I was hand picked by awe to save my skin."

3

God's been text messaging again.

At least 200 encryptors at a conference in Beijing

report seeing code on a giant wall screen

resembling the Chinese characters

for what is best described as "No Growth."

Once the shock and awe subsided

the speaker commanded the portent

be saved for one's grandchildren

"living in a world that will prove it wrong."

4

God's been speaking in tongues again.

A middle-aged Saskatchewan bed wetter

reports she was cured of "wayward drainage"

when dry drought winds unhinged

her front and back screen doors

and started them banging in unison.

As of this doleful moment, the doors continue

their eerie random tandem

and may do so for the rest of time.

What is the wind trying to tell you?

a TV reporter asked her

pointing a microphone at the commotion.

"Piss in a pot like everybody else,"

the former bed wetter explained.

That's all, the pestering reporter asked.

"Well, it just isn't mannerly for the Lord

to be so public about private things."

5

God's been having hissy fits again.

Jews and Palestinians alike

are locked in aghastness

at seeing a Tel Aviv TV weather map

refuse to predict any future behavior of the elements.

The clouds in the satellite photos tighten

and roll backwards to a primordial thickness

obscuring all sight of land and sea.

"This is the kind of impenetrable sky

you would expect after a volcano," a forecaster says.

"Haim, you are right," his weather mate, Abdul, agrees,

"There is a gathering darkness

that could force cancellation of all flights."

Haim adds, "Except missiles

guided by flawless intelligence

to targets deserving of smithereens."

"Haim, my friend," Abdul cautions,

"prophets of both our traditions predict

days so dire with fire and rain

every desert bloom left pinned and pummeled

brings no relief to torment

and serves only as symptom,

not a sign, of survival."

6

The One is trafficking in symbols again.

When seen from space

every tract of earth's vast curvature

is continuous with teal-blue luminescence

and stands for the radiant, rugged intactness

of light and life begging to be commonplace.

Words sung or spoken have no meaning

apart from the visible hum and drum of light

tripping from the tongue of every thing.

Have you heard good news as far as the eye can see?

Rain beads on chrysanthemum petal

strummed with wind speaking no discernible name.

Sun spins summer heat at the edge of hydrangea

and proclaims the easy shine of substance

which is first essence and sole meaning of matter

when God becomes His favorite synonym of feast.

--David Federman, Narberth, June 21-22, 2010