Verse by Caleb Mannan

If you like Robert Service, Longfellow, Tolkien, Milton, Robinson Jeffers, Whitman, Poe, The Bible, Tennyson, Ray Bradbury, life, death, Untermeyer, Pound, Donne, joy, sorrow, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves, children, beauty, Dante, Tom Waits, then set yourself down beside this fire.

Friday, February 19, 2010

XXIV. There is a God in Heaven

There is a God in Heaven,
Hammer ringing at the forge,
Heaven’s bellows belching fire

There is a God in Heaven,
Sweat dripping from his brow,
Becoming my blood,
Spilling to the anvil sizzling

Bone wrought with iron,
Blood sparks flying
Bone bent back smooth
Melded and hewn

I was wrought upon Elysian anvil
Ere the light of dawn’s coming
The sky was spun with stars, dark,
Going gloam upon the edges where I was formed

Flame, dust and ash begat bone,
A frame was formed and hammered,
Baked and laid to cool,
The Maker running his hands
Over gleaming skull
Grinning strands of bone
Dully glowing in starlight after the fires had died away

There is a God in Heaven,
Fingers weaving at the loom,
Flesh to flesh sewn cartilage, muscle

These great strands of fleshly cords
Are laid upon the skeleton
And fastened seamless,
A form made of many threads

I was woven upon a celestial loom
Before the dawn had fully broke
The rim of All That Was
Was barely broken with blue where I was begat

Dust and water bore flesh,
A skin was formed, woven,
Still and perfect,
The Great Weaver,
Looking upon this perfect form,
Called it good, though still lifeless and cold

Then came Angels
As the firing of an axon,
A myriad, a bright and shining forest

They sang songs we have only glimpsed
In our joy and sorrow
With many voices that became one,
They sang:

“Hail our Creator,
And this that He hath made!
For glorious is the Work of His Hands,
This that He hath made in his image!
As the Lord hath spake,
He shall be called Man,
And He shall take dominion
Of that which was created for him!”

This they sang around the form of Man

And the Great Smithy came forth,
His tools cast aside,
And He spoke over the voice
Of the Legions of Light as a trumpet:

“Bone of the make of the earth,
Your kingdom and your keep,
Flesh of this earth and sea,
Rise you up and become living,
For I give my breath to thee!”

And I inhaled the breath given and lived,
As the angels rejoiced whilst the man
Wondered at his flesh
And the Lord said:

“You are my son,
And you shall be the destiny of the earth,
And show forth my glory.”

And thus it was

For there is a Hammer ringing in the Halls of Heaven,
As the Great Smithy
Smites the make of man

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