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I have had it with
perfection.
I have packed my bags,
I am out of here.
Gone.
As certain as rain
will make you wet,
perfection will do you
in.
It droppeth not as dew
upon the summer grass
to give liberty and green
joy.
Perfection straineth out
the quality of mercy,
withers rapture at its
birth.
Before the battle is half begun,
cold probity thinks
it can't be won, concedes the
war.
I've handed in my notice,
give back my keys,
signed my severance check, I
quit.
Hints I could have taken:
Even the perfect chiseled form of
Michelangelo's radiant David
squints,
the Venus de Milo
has no arms,
the Liberty Bell is
cracked.
("Now the Lord said to Abram, 'Go from your country.'" Gen 12:1)
Talk about imperious.
Without a by-your-leave,
or, may I presume?
No previous contact,
no letter of introduction,
no greeting,
just out of the blue
this unknown God
issues edicts.
This is not a conversation.
Am I a nobody
to receive decrees
from one whose name
I do not know?
And at our first encounter!
I have worshipped my own god.
To you I had addressed no prayers,
offered no sacrifices.
asked no favors,
but quick,
like sudden fire in the desert,
without the most elemental ritual,
I hear "Go."
At seventy-five,
am I supposed to scuttle my life,
take that ancient wasteland, Sarai,
place my thin arthritic bones
upon the road
to some mumbled nowhere?
Let me get this straight.
I will be brief.
I summarize.
In ten generations since the Flood
you have spoken to no one.
Now, like thunder on a clear day,
you give commands:
pull up my tent,
desert my home,
the graves of my ancestors,
my friends next door, leave Haran
for a country you do not name,
there to be a stranger,
a sojourner.
God of the wilderness,
from two desiccated lumps,
from two parched prunes
you promise to make a great nation.
In me all peoples of the earth
will be blessed.
You come late, Lord, very late,
but my camels leave in the morning.
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