Proverb 27
The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of Eternity too great for the eye of man.
1Though he lived in the 18th century, William Blake is a poet for our time. I am meditating on The Proverbs of Hell, from his illuminated work The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, to explore the relationship of poetry to prayer and prophecy.
What fellowship shall wolf have with lamb? Such is the wicked to the righteous; and so is the rich unto a man that is destitute.
Ben Sira 13:17 (The Wisdom of Ben Sira, Cambridge University Press, 1899)
The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.
John 10:12
A scribe then approached and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
Matthew 8:19-20
Listen to the lion inside of me. But I would not have you imagine it is the Lion of Judah, the great warrior Haile Salassie. I am at sea. The sea is a sword. The sword opens the heavens like lightning, like the howling of wolves. It cleaves the eye.
Halile Salassie, pray for your children, both enslaved and free.
I am the cloud that opens the moon. I am the storm. I am the storm’s memory. I am the troubled dawn. I’m a man of limited vision. My reach extends only to my fingertips. It cannot exceed my grasp. My vision is limited by the horizon.
The raging of the sea is the Lady of the Lake who resides in the throne room of my heart. She holds sway over this blighted vision of mine. Is it the sun I see, or a host of angels singing Holy Holy Holy?
I can see the line between the man and the woman in me. When the night opens with the hope of the northern stars, and the moon is a waning caricature. “Pray for me, Johnny Cash,” she says, her knees folded on the horizon. “Pray for me, Leonard Cohen,” says the moon, “it’s almost dark enough.”
I build a ladder to the sky, built with rungs of I Want. Built with vision of corpuscles, muscles, and viscera. In dreams, I build. In dreams, I build.
The Lady of the Lake, Money Bags Sue, lives at the end of No Trespassing Lane. She’s woe-begone. She carries an empty lantern, in need of oil. O, wise ones, be kind when you hear her plea. She’s gotten the runaround. She’s gotten ahead of herself.
The wolf wanders across the heath. He walks the edges of midnight town. He’ll steal a kiss from grandmother, and steal a bite from the red-hooded girl.
Johnny Cash, won’t you pray baruch for me. Will you walk this line between night & morning? Will you bless this abandoned freight line? You’ve got a fox’s face and a fox’s heart. You’ve got that tricky heart. Your last testament is written on a yellowed sheet stuck in the sound hole of a battered old guitar2.
I’m a citizen of Estival: that door that stretches across the eastern horizon. I meet you there, Ashrey Cohen, blessed in your despair cloak. You are the tumble of the sea. You are the storm that troubles the water.
My fingers are lightening. My fingers are electric wires. The warmth of my fingers restart the lady’s heart.
The Sword of Damocles cleaves the horizon, where dwell portions of eternity. Where dwells the crashing waves. Where dwell the intimate whispers of stormy mornings.
Come, my love: let us journey through that door. Let us find that hidden garden where the male & female become as one spirit.
5.II.2024
William Blake. “Proverbs of Hell.” The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Oxford University Press, 1975, xviii.
Casie Dodd. “Johnny Cash, Pray for Me.” Oxford American, 2022, pp. 12 - 16.