I will be blinded…

               …for I would see.

Burn up the globes of my eyes

     —crackle their milky sclera—

allow their emerald irises to flake away,

                        and fall into the dustpile.

Fry up their lenses

—from crystal…to citrine…to coal—

with your sizzling heat.     

Turn these juicy organs of sight into pitted prunes

—food for beasts—

ready for the buzzard’s pluck to rip them from rooty sinew.

I give you my eyes,

for sacred light I seek.

No more will I avert my vision from thee.

Burn not my skin to turn it rosy, but

—all at once—

set me ablaze.

No longer will I drone and be droned,

hearing the heartache of the world,

—this tenement of shadows—

when I might witness the beat of the celestial heart,

that circulates living light

and pulses radiance into us all.

Shine

   Systole…diastole,

day first then cool night,

   bring us morning dear one,

      and refresh our hearts

with the first

        light.

Why look,

with wretched eyes,

            upon all the reflections of reflections

—the merest glimmers of your glory—

                        when I might be blinded? 

I will seek you in vision,

and even night will not cool my eyes

     —steaming still—

for when the moon alights with your

hidden presence,

I will gaze upon her and think of you.

One and all know it,

though they steal their eyes quick away,

never meeting your face…

                        but remembering a while.

They know that all light and warmth

—wafting as slowly through the universe as the scent of a dewy rose—

comes from the solar furnace in whose kiln all hardens

and forms and takes on living shape.

The disk of the sun

     —Great ATEN—

lord of pharaohs,

     and plants and green blood and red and deep blue water making white clouds. 

Lord ATEN,

who graces all with your heavenly stroll,

calmly bemused by the radiating life,

which turns and returns,

     —spinning from an ancient web whose silk you spun—

of photons and life,

     —whether wave or real—

turn us loose,

set us free with warmth and pulse.

     Mighty ATEN,

                                                Who will emerge alike from mountain and sea,

     —Strike down upon us—

reveal the sacred day which holds all enchained.

                                    Waft the winds and give flight to our sails,

so that we may give you chase.

Let us tear across dappled waters,

 to hunt you ‘til dusk

     —when—

finding you no more,

we may rest in the night.

     Great ATEN,