Elijah on Carmel

After you gave the world a miracle
you gave another to me. You slipped yourself
into the myofibrils of my quadriceps,
the oxygen-rich surface of my erythrocytes,
the stratum corneum of the soles of my feet, so that
my muscles could contract tirelessly,
my lungs inflate with ease, and the miles
pass smooth beneath me. I ran faster than horses.
Maybe not so amazing
after fire that ate bone and stone, but a miracle
nonetheless.


Jehovah, you remind me
that everything is yours: your hot breath
feeding the complete combustion of blood and soil; your fingers
swirling water vapor into clumps of cumulonimbus;
your palms pushing gusts of wind
through atmospheric circulation, and I think these thick raindrops
are made of your tears; tears for the four hundred fifty men
you commanded me to kill.


When the king arrived in Jezreel on his chariot
I was there to meet him,
and the horses snorted and shook water from their manes,
and the sky cracked and growled, and rain –
the rain fell, and we lifted our faces, we rubbed it into our hair,
we caught it on our tongues, sweeter than manna,
and prayers trickled through the wrinkles in my cerebral cortex,
and my heart sang
You Are, You Are, You Are.