immersion

There is anger abroad in the world, a numb thunder,

because of God's silence. But how naive,

to keep wanting words we could speak ourselves,

English, Urdu, Tagalog, the French of Tours,

the French of Haiti...

Yes, that was one way omnipotence chose

to address us - Hebrew, Aramaic, or whatever the patriarchs

chose in their turn to call what they heard. Moses

demanded the word, spoken and written. But perfect freedom

assured other ways of speech. God is surely

patiently trying to immerse us in a different language,

events of grace, horrifying scrolls of history

and the unearned retrieval of blessings lost for ever,

the poor grass returning after drought, timid, persistent.

God's abstention is only from human dialects. The holy voice

utters its woe and glory in myriad musics, in signs and portents.

Our own words are for us to speak, a way to ask and to answer.

~ Denise Levertov

from for lovers of god everywhere
Poems of the Christian Mystics
art by Hillal Hussain