SPEECH IMPEDIMENT
Uncanny quiet over the face of the earth
when a plague wind blows
like a Sabbath no one chose.
All the crumpled greed, the burnt-up wrath.
The painter paints, the poet bodies forth
rehearsals of embottled ships.
Righteous Ironsides in death-grips,
waves of evil crashing each wake-froth.
We recall the speech impediment of Moses,
his lame stuttering.
The stubborn mule, his bawling;
how the moth anticipates his metamorphoses.
The beard of flame, the copper serpent…
apotropes for lamb
muzzled to kingdom come –
the mute goodness, whose light is spent
in painful denouements of selfless love.
We know these weary nurses
of the commonweal. Sursum corda
you sweet Cordelias, sent from above.
Amid stark silence of a vacant Mass
my murmurs of a restoration
seem almost abomination.
You must judge what ought to come to pass.
These incoherent old man’s mutterings.
Only an echo of Jerusalem
to come. Your Jubilee, I AM –
brilliant integrity of all good things.
We hold these truths to be self-evident –
Williams' Carta (so fair,
kind, true). Coke’s tender care
breathing to Providence (love’s fundament).
4.21.20
