GOD - BUSY 

AT THE LOOM 

Poem for Today - March 16, 2014

THE TASK

As if God were an old man
always upstairs, sitting about
in sleeveless undershirt, asleep,
arms folded, stomach rumbling,
his breath from open mouth
strident, presaging death ...

No, God's in the wilderness next door
- that huge tundra room, 
         no walls and a sky roof -
busy at the loom. Among the berry bushes,
rain or shine, that loud clacking and whirring,
irregular but continuous;
God is absorbed in work, and hears
the spacious hum of bees, not the din,
and hears far-off
our screams. Perhaps
he listens for prayers in that wild solitude.
And hurries on with the weaving:
till it's done, the great garment woven,
our voices, clear under the familiar

         blocked-out clamor of the task,
can't stop their
                           terrible beseeching God
imagines it sifting through, at last, to music
in the astounded quietness, the loom idle,
the weaver is at rest.

(c) Denise Levertov