“The Lake Diva Briefly Considers Consequences of Heresy” by L L Harper
“God is a polygendered fisherperson of multi-dominational souls.”
Overheard as jon boat trolls by dock on Lake Murray
Sometimes the stars fall
like words from the blazing
lips of God who disapproves
of the kindling we have become,
and we burst into flame, scald
moist, summer air as we burn
down to charred skeletals, our path
stained by the calamity of our footsteps.
But he repents his condemnation,
blows life back into the fish inside everybody
and we dive toward darker water, love the shadowy
depths where sun remains a stranger and unwelcome.
No star breath down here.
A leaping fish is a silver comma with gills.
Did you say you paused once before twice sinning?
The rain forest showers you clean on foreign continents asphalted.
Do all fish genuflect, or just the faithless? I see schools
of them drift past, white circles surfacing in their wake,
or is God in a silicone mask, a scuba diver blowing bubbles at fishtails,
sharking behind them, his countenance behind mask glass, fractured by a thousand waves?
Under docks the cat chases anything smaller than she.
She swallows all my sins in dark matter that separates some of
us—each a world, a single atom forming under Jehovah’s tongue.
Like pearls begat by invasion, we’re birthed nameless as the space between knees.
Kneel and he will name you accordingly. Make
merry, you dance of fire, water, mud, light and fish.
Understand it all comes down to a short wait & letting go.
We didn’t ask for any of this, yet here loom gifts of appalling grace.
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L L Harper Artist Statement:
This poem won the DuBose and Dorothy Hayward Society Prize.
I am a poet who has been away from my art for a while due to health issues. I have eight chapbooks, two full collections, KISS, KISS (CSU 2008) and TOWARD DESIRE(Washington Prize, 1995).
I define myself as a poet, artist, teacher, dulcimer player. My writing and teaching have always been fundamental to my self-identity as I have grown and matured.
