Dear God, the Day is Grey
Dear God, the day is grey. My house
is not in order. Lord, the dust
sifts through my rooms and with my fear
I sweep mortality, outwear
my brooms, but not this leaning floor
which lasts and groans, I, walking here,
still loathe the Labors I would love
and hate the self I cannot move.
And God, I know the unshined boards,
the flaking ceiling, various stains
that mottle these distempered goods,
the greasy cloths, the jagged tins,
the dog that paws the garbage cans.
I know what laborings, love, and pains,
my blood would will, yet will not give:
The knot of hair that clogs the drains
clots in my throat. My dyings thrive.
The refuse, Lord, that I put out
burns in vast pits incessantly.
All piecemeal deaths, trash, undevout
and sullen sacrifice, to thee.
nice post professor! I was struck by the last stanza. In the NT book of Revelation and I believe in both Jewish and Christian teaching a place call Gehenna is where garbage burned continuously and it as Hell or Hades...
ReplyDelete"In both Rabbinical Jewish and Christian writing, Gehenna as a destination of the wicked is different from Hades, the abode of the dead, and is but loosely analogous to the concept of
Hell." Also "the picture of Gehenna as the place of punishment or destruction of the wicked occurs frequently in the Mishnah in Kiddushin 4.14, Avot 1.5; 5.19, 20, Tosefta t.Bereshith 6.15, and Babylonian Talmud b.Rosh Hashanah 16b:7a; b.Bereshith 28b." (From Wickipedia "Gehenna"
Thus I assume the author's reference to being in "purgatory?"
Also... I like the Blog title.