Today's poem is something of a midrash, an exploration of nuances in Biblical stories that are not explicitly commented on. Scott Cairns is the first poet I read to do this, and David Wright introduced me to the concept. This piece takes as its basis the collection of manna in the desert.
Lord God,
there are weevils
in my manna.
No one knows,
no one saw
that I doubted you
and trusted my own arm's
provision.
The smell does not
waft beyond the boundaries
of my tent's walls.
It was strong and musky
at first, but now it merely
lingers in the back of my throat,
by morning it will be
a whiff of memory.
I do not know how
to dispose of this mess,
others will see it
as they pass by
should I dump it by my door.
I fear this,
for I have seen the piles
outside the doors of others,
and all the clever ways
the try to obscure
from sight all evidence.
I shall wait until the next
day's wanderings begin,
when, mired in dust,
I can safely hide
this episode.
Don't worry God,
I learned my lesson,
I'm not ashamed
to tell you that.
I like the "I'm not ashamed to tell you that." It made me first think that I should be striving for that - being able to tell God everything without being ashamed. But I think there are things that I should be ashamed to tell God - like sins - but I should still tell him. I think that sense of shame before God is good. I can definitely relate with this whole theme of not wanting others to see my sin though. It's a good topic.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment, it's very illuminating to me. I had hoped to set up a sense of irony with the last lines - after describing the great extent that he is willing to go to to hide the evidence of his sin, the speaker says that he's not ashamed. I meant to imply that he's really not fully acknowledging his sin, not coming to grips with it, and merely thinks that he's fine and past it. I think I was trying to look at the community aspect of sin, and the way the people around us 1. ignore the signs of sin they see in us (seeing piles outside of the homes of others and not going to them and holding them accountable in love) 2. Seem shocked when we admit sin in our lives, as if they cannot understand how someone could fall.
ReplyDeleteI can see I'll need to take another look at this and see how to flush out those meanings more, thanks so much for the input!
The first line made me LOL.
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