“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret.” — Pablo Neruda Sonnet XVII
One night I put God away,
packed Him—Her, perhaps it was—
away like an old toy, a childhood journal.
Not the right path I said, and it was true—is true
that God is too small, a cutout painted,
the edges jagged from scissors that tore the cardboard.
But I packed something else away that night
a love, some slant of light on the sparrow at the bench,
from a face on the street.
Not gone entirely, some scrap
of song, a darkness on the wind
coming round about, not at the front door
but a leak through the sash of the window
no longer nameable.
Maybe this had to be—
to stop pinning and naming, being good,
to stop doing the work
and let the work lead on its secret way.
But, oh, I have lost—the honey
green of leaves in childhood,
a light like milk falling from a basement window.
Throw it on the fire my teacher said.
If it’s true, it will not burn.
And I, childlike, threw it in—
God and all the sacraments, the voice
that whispered to me, the desire
for light and sweetness falling from the air.
And so a long, slow burning
a prayer like a coal in the mind.
So many years, all the world burning
and I do not know where I stand
in a land sacred despite me.
Me still wanting to love—but what?
a glow in the night sky?
Me still wanting to throw it all on the fire—
myself, God, Zen, the boxes and doors and names,
still wanting to stand in the rain and be nothing but rain
still hearing a sound chink chink
bird call, whistle tone
voice asking, do you love me?
and my child voice answering, Yes.
Yes, I love you.
If you tell me to, I will do it again.
—Sarah Webb
