Tormented by hunger for the living God,

I scoured for manna in the wilderness

When a seraph, crossing my thorny path,

Took me under his self-righteous wings.

With hands drawn like ethereal dreams

He touched the horizons of my sunken face:

A teeming abyss stretched before my eyes

Beneath the plenitude of a harvest moon.

He struck the drums of my untuned ears

With resounding news of nature's prime.

And I beheld the sky rise up like bread

And heard mountains burst like cherubim

And saw monsters swallowing the deep

And felt the ripening of the lowly vine.

Unleashing the fury of his right hand,

The angel ripped out my crooked tongue

And, within my mouth's wild confines,

Planted the wise serpent's healing sting.

Across the open vistas of my flesh

He cut a path with his blazing sword

And took my foolish heart by storm

And filled its chambers with live coals.

As I lay in the desert like a corpse,

I heard God's voice above the ground:

"Arise, prophet, behold the earth.

Move and be moved by my will.

Leap over perilous seas and lands

And on parched lips set my Word."

Benjamin Sher
October 1, 1999

[Published in SlavFile, Summer, 2001]