Canticle for the Lilac Garden
V
And the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire.
You heard the voice of his words, but you saw not any form at all.
Fitting as beauty is dawning in Israel, weariest feeling
Took hold laying upon this man in a warming reproach, sting
Grasping the limbs as a creeping persuasion, exhaustion afflicted
Little by little, and though in perspective, the morning approaching
Fails to displace as the coming of night, as yet over my flesh the
Call of fatigue is already announcing intent, as to harden
Flesh to a substance of stone, and to lock in its place all my worn out
Limbs, so along this path in the first light, there is a garden
Formed by a sunken embankment and curated flowers, the fallen
Fences of wood ineffective containing the ruins of someone’s
Careful creation, as this man came in as far and away as
Possible toward the Jordan in mountains of Benjamin, comes one
Where not a sign of a road or a property boundary should be
Clear to observe; it is here in a stupor a weary decision
Came to possess this man, for the path is afar and the garden
Sleeps, in its hedges of orchids and hyssop permit in provision
Sprouts of a lilac arrangement pervading in otherwise empty
Shrub, as a cushion inviting a sorry repose, and a reason
Surely to veer off and feel underneath scorched feet a relief that
Caused in an instant a fall to the ground, for knees in a treason
Buckle before the relief of a redoubt delivered by reasons
Far from light; as it stands, this man does not, and collapses
Into a deep sleep shortly thereafter, at least in a loose sense
Safe, as the wilds are rugged and deeply evasive, of lapses
Cut in between some path of a distant discovery, fully
Hidden in time, as was thought at the time of the dream, a regretful
Scene, in a tomb of obsidian staunch and defiant, ingrained with
Stars and sojourning celestial bodies, a small and forgetful
Place where characters come in and out of its different rooms, a
Mansion proportioned to vastly imagined displays in my traipsed bed,
Coming as visions of terror and joy, though looming in this dream
Inky and cast by a shadow, a figure unveiled; proudly, the shape said,
Thou hast beheld me in horror across routes bound in away the
Mount of the Olives, and there, thou failed to respect the malignant
Face of thy master, the face of destruction, and thus is within my
Power to change something, and thou share as a witness indignant
Fruitless rebellion, powerless faced with the subtle unwilling
Change I have made, to behold in another respect the fulfilling
Process controlling the things of existence, the forces obtaining
Shares of thy life, and of these, I possess in a sense the sustaining
Might of thy soul, and as such, thou obey, for the choice is without doubt
Mine and alone it is mine, so if thou were of wisdom, to shout out
Serves as futility such that any remembrance thereof
Ends in its wails of beginning, in time and eternity where love
Dashes itself on a rock of intent, the remaining complaint, if
Such a decision emerges and suffering makes it a plaintiff
Testified favoring goodness and gentle ambition; to clearly
Say it in brief: it is not in my interest now to sincerely
Claim of my nature or otherwise one thing over another,
Rather to come to explain in a word that souls, as a mother
Weans and possesses her children, the Angel of Death is the shepherd,
Sinners his flock, and indeed thou has wandered astray, an unfettered
Sheep in a grand world lonesome and cold; and I come as a warning,
Not as the Angel of Death, for I come as the angel of morning
Light, to illuminate these things: Abaddon, Mouth of Destruction,
Seeks to regain his displaced sheep through his own ways; my instruction
Should be priority, that the Destroyer is sated if given
That soul only, no other suffices, for shepherds had striven
Greater endeavors to take back lone sheep, this of all motions
Abaddon knows of the most, as a pelican over the oceans
Quickly observes prey, this is the burden bestowed to the lost of his flock, he
Ceaselessly searches and comes for the revenant, thus as the rocky
Journey ahead is established, I tell in my confidence that an audacious
Soul will return to him quickly, and thus I suggest to thee gracious,
Perfect devotion to God, as the only salvation thee might be
Given is through Him and only Him, that the Destroyer politely
Calms to the voice of the Lord and obeys, to the ends of the earth he
Looks for his taken, and such as the Lord can protect all the worthy
Deemed by Him such as, for strange times coming indicative through thee
Born as a dead man coming alive is a sign, it is truly
Living a sign, and the age of the covenant moves in the distance,
Brokered forever, renewed and revived, and although the consistence
Never depended on thee, it is such a revival redemption
Manifests fully, the end of the ardor, a warning to mention
Now in thy latent awakening, that a redeeming devotion
Toward the Lord is contingent on certain behaviors, a notion
Offers no worship to God, and as such, heed this as a favor:
Pray, and as often as possible, pray, if the Lord is to savor
Prayer, the goodness of sacrifice solely depends on intention;
Truth in its element suffers to bear in its newest dimension
Clasping of hands and a singing of praises by sons of perdition,
Lawless by nature remains in the eyes of the Lord in suspicion,
Songs and displays of austere disposition as worthless as soiled
Rags, so in earnest repentance, do right by the Lord, for embroiled
Wholly in spirit is action, and thus it is always a matter
Worth explanation, the sacrifice matters in kind, for to flatter
Worsens the sin, the offense, and the doubling sins are a blaspheme,
Thus it is wise if thou listen and practice it, granted He shall deem
What is sincere, and as such, of the second commandment attested
Now, it is most wise starting today to avoid in divested
Fashion to ever deceive or to lie, it supplants all the other
Sins as the greatest affront to the Lord, for the lie is the mother
Whom bears every child of sin, for iniquities monger
Only itself, and yet lying bequeaths to its progeny stronger
Staying foundations equipped to survive the attempts of redemption
Borne by the sinner, the wicked in character offers exemption
Tabled by truth, and no sin can endure in the light of the morning,
Just as the Lord is the truth, so rejecting the truth is the scorning
Softly of God, and yet truly no sinner accepts it, for lying
Surely allows all the sins in its own ways, people complying
Solely to truth are as fearful of that which they do to brother
Should in inspection be covered no longer, revealed to another
What in contempt was performed, so the lie is the enemy henceforth;
Thirdly, perhaps in a certain respect it becomes, in a sense, fourth,
Speak in the truth of thyself, in the manner of good represented
Thoroughly sidelong, manifest time in renewal fermented
Here in the land of thy dreams; to repeat of the things with intention
Pondering power and God in thy worship and word, so to mention
These as commands is redundant in some ways, beckoning bated
Breath for a newly transformative doctrine, so still in elated
Dour, expecting the last of the laws in my warning, insipid
Waiting in holy revealing, is keeping the hour of wicked
Tempting at bay, but provides no protection in combat against it,
Thus for the time up until some other decree is dispensed, fit
Fully for living in gratitude, far be it from me to cradle
Doctrine as mothers expect to assuage small children; withstanding a fatal
Circumstance offers itself in particular nothing of beaming
Precepts, as such I have come in a sort of humility, dreaming,
Though in mysterious labor and chance, for I know the confusion
Borne in the current affair, so I offer to thee this: hold no illusion,
Never expect to withstand a temptation, no man immune to appearance,
Nor to himself be as strong to endure; for thy sake, perseverance,
Now I reveal in a brief phrase what is my essence, my name, this
Fact of my being perhaps should illumine neither a famous
Name nor surprising deception as ever revealed to a mortal
Man; I am Uziel, Angel of Interior Life and of Moral
Pondering, both of the angels and man, for my name can be read in
Hebrew as, God is my Prayer or God I consider, to beckon
Thought and contemplative life for the Lord, as an offer we render
Through the unending eternities, covenant gifts of surrender
Marked as a sign of our sacrifice; make no mistake, the angelic
Hosts are above all the host of the heavens, for every relic
Hanging among all the stars in the night sky, not as lifeless
Hereof, of which the celestial bodies are hardly as righteous
Though in a magnitude lesser compared to the Lord, of the only
Source of all holiness, from all among the angelic, the lonely
Spirits devoted in perfect respect to the Lord, of the cherished
Ones and the ranks they hold, and the gifts we possess of imperished
Surety, God is my Prayer distinguishes from the distinguished,
Given the rank archangel, of which I preside and relinquish
Nothing of responsible matters to that of thy guardian spirit,
Though in its tasks it emboldens thy life, and as such, if thou fear it
Rightly, and heed all the things I have told thee, truly I remember
What it is that I have told thee, bright as an ember
Falling at night in a new moon, loosening binds by a Savior’s
Grace on behalf of the Lord the unfurled retrospective, to save or
Grant as unearned and appropriate deemed by the Lord, in releasing
Thee in Gehenna to marvel in wondrous impatience, unceasing
Purpose, and true love, great revelations await; for the current
Moment, it must wait, though in a moment it shall be concurrent
Coming with this in interior face, for the what I have sworn, said,
Done, and decreed are to pass for the man in the grave who was born dead.
Suddenly wakened in pain, for as this trance sleep had engrossed in
Perfect effect was undone by the cold, sharp, iron invading
Flesh as a tip of a spearhead plunged in and broke in my side, which
Pulsed in a wave of a pure, white, pain, and as quickly persuading
This man’s quickest reflexive reproach, rolling and leaping as fast as
Possible, over the spearhead one of the soldiers delivered
Through in a short, sharp thrust and began in a tongue of a foreign
Accent presumably orders to wake, and as harshly considered
Through a particular prodding, the frantic respect of the iron
Spear, and the bark of an armed legionnaire and his sorry companion
Came as unknown bursts, language surmised to interpret as tongues of
Foreign commands, the confusion interrupted in moments examined
Followed by silence, for this was a scene of a strange and bewildered
Kind, in it this man laying upon white flowers and briars
Dug into flesh, in a moment of lucid detachment I noted
Must have existed before the decision to sleep, the desires
Forced by fatigue an unwise, unforgiving demand, as the added
Wounds on the body began to entreaty attention and rival
Those of the iron; and surely the stock of the man was as stunning,
Covered in bloodied and torn sack-cloth, indication deprival
Stunted his life, the amount of blood as another, and surely
That of his burial cloth or his scar as a circle all level
Rounding his neck in an evident sign of his loss; so the soldiers
Brutishly stomped on his back hard, binding him frantically devil-
Panicked and slightly possessed, and between them seized superstition
Passing in quiet distraction, binding in measure my waking
Body recoiling limply in pain with a cord and a rod placed
Lateral crossing the wrists, and as swift in the binding and making
Haste to remove in him movement, the soldiers began to encourage
Through a continual prodding with the spear to aright him in forceful
Barks in a tongue he did not know, though in its tenor I surely
Could grasp what it is they had requested, in kind with resourceful
Thinking, so staggering forth as the revenant, soon in the morning
Late, the intrusion beginning as low of a journey as this brings
Handsome remembrance of passions in sleep, and a weariness troubles
Muscle and joint like waters awash in continual drippings
Chipping away at the bones and the tendons forever, as long as
Time might like, for the time as it comes has permitted a terror
Draped in the honors of Roman allegiance, as soon as I stumbled
Came the rebuke as a blow, for the journey as such any error
Hastily made could act as an act of defiance, deserving
Timely correction in form of a stripe, and the day had begun too
Early to risk disobedience; thus in the waking arraign of the daytime,
This man born dead walks as the dead and obeys till I come to
What the patrol had in mind for a stray Jew stained in his blood and
Ragged despite a retreat in the Kidron for washing amounting
Near a rebirth; it became as apparent the Romans prepared for
Such a captivity, shortly requiring steadily running
Goaded by their spear tip, and as they sought mostly amusement
Through the fatigued and exhausted imprisoned, the day in its other
Ways had retreated in kind in the skies, for its day of a rainstorm
Called by the summer erupted in coming return, as a mother
Nurses an infant, so does the arisen embankment to nourish
Through the beginnings of rivers and wadis renowned by the nation
Parched and in need of the cistern or wells of the patriarchs gathered
Long since past, for the heat is a horror, the last perspiration
Coming in silence and sudden arraignment to earth, as the dust falls
Down so the dry of the mouth does, once and as always the water
Given to chaos commanded in waves to be reigned in as bodies
Act as a vessel for water and poorly a vessel in hotter
Seasons, the sweat of the man indication enough of his lesser
Nature, a fair discontentment, and wearied degrees to the foul
End of the mind in a softer degrading respect, for the Romans
Knew in the punishment given to this man uttered in growl,
Bark, and distinct squawk what it is that entertained or at least could
Partly delay the aggressive and long bore charged to unwitting
Romans in Italy fed by the hand and despoiled by lack of
Spoil, in true irritation by awkward superiors sitting
Half in and half out of office, centurions and others believing
That the patrol of a moment’s assigning is satisfied treading
Over the dust of a nation as much as the brigands assigned to
Cities and fortresses, glorious plunder the war is abetting,
Sought by the masses for honor and booty, and still the patrol here
Walks on behalf of Jerusalem, what it entreaties with luster,
Splendor, and loot for the home-sick soldiers at Zion today, though
Mightier hands are at work in the fall of a nation, the cluster
Hanging upon grape-vines is a product of others besides the
Dresser of vines, and the slaughter of cattle has never arisen
From the becoming of axes, and certain destructions encompass
Error of highest degrees in our knowledge of them, in the prison
Forged in the ignorance borne of the birth and the terror of truth struck
Dumb in the grave, and the closer the tormented stumbles as herded
Stock for the slaughter, he sees in it truth so embittered and brusque, a
Different thought for the tormentor shamefully ignorant girded
Speciously through the adornments of power, he knows of a little
Though he is short in his full understanding, a mind of a child
Owing as much as the driven, as nothing, and nothing of countless
Spurious endowments he bears as his heritage, powerful, mild,
Meek, and deserving deserters who seek an amusement of power
Good for the time and destructive in all-time, currently sourced through
Soldiers of spoils ungotten and waiting for coming collection,
Passing the time in a cruel display; subjected and forced to
Run in the desert, the play-thing broached at the end of a spear, I
Gasped for a breath and reprieve as to come yet, fevered and labored
Strenuous steps on a path to demise, as it seems to me right now,
Toward a mouth of destruction as once we evaded in wavered
Taking of flesh of a Sadducee joined by his slain by Oliviet, dreaming
Angelic without a fruit or a time to repent by his vanished
Form apparition in shadowy figure and pomp, the beginning
Comes at the end in abridged intercession and warning to banished
Leaves of the tree in the winds of an exile, weak as an arm bent
Back or a wave overturned in its wake, in a Day of Atonement
Lacking the goats, or a feast of a Passover after the bread had
Leavened, as much it is said, is too late to repent if postponement
Comes unallotted for punishing this man guilty and living
After a day in the world, oh a mere day, should his contrition
Speak for itself in a mere day, lest he be punished for sins he
Carried in lives past, should he betray covenantal condition
Thoroughly struck in the blood of the sacrificed, death as the darkness
Covering that of dispensed truth, pettiest wisdoms stampeding
Long with the glorious face of the Lord in its midst, for the ever-
Eager in torment believe in no such things, bearing competing
Though insufficient beliefs in a world of a simple and sterile
Make, for the Romans embedded in this sad torture are surely
Keeping an oath for a reason besides the despoiling offered,
Though for a purpose as useless as torment perhaps, or as purely
Stayed in transaction with higher existence if this is the measure
Given to weak men shored in the eyes of a curious foreign
God, a construction of wistful desire and missing prophetic
Vision as useless as mentioned before, things avarice bore in
Times as removed as the idols the Romans respect, and as such, this
Judgment in hands of the two thus holding the spears is a prospect
Frightening forward detail, for the greed and the malice distilled by
War and by envy enraptures and strengthens all sin in the concept
Leading the three to the ends of the day, to the camp of the Roman
Legion, the worst of all places for any survivors distressing
Over the loss of Jerusalem, should a destruction befall them
Here in the arms of the bull of the north, where these are processing
Toward in spurts of the sprints the patrollers encouraged by tip of
Spears, and the future established is churning uncertain in moving
Down, down hills in eventual coming to far and away sights
Caged by the smoke of their fires assenting, approving
Forth in the fading of lights and the chilling of winds, as the western
Breezes arrive to combat the sirocco oppression, succeeding
Through its torpidity laying to waste all the heat of the red draught
Wrought of an evening in Israel, lulling to sleep my acceding
Bones, so embattled and weary, to duly consent to the coolness
Weighed on the wings of the wind, and although the allowance afforded
Long the affliction remains with the Roman patrol as to yet not
Offered a respite, the bones will possess and defeat in exhorted
Pangs to the body until it is bowed to the dust, as of this night
Comes to beginning a restful retreat into slumber, a neatly
Folding of limbs and the first since raised of the grave, for the Romans
Striking with spear and delirium fail to arouse me completely,
Only to wake for the witness of torment, and still I regress in
Sleep for the night, as exhausted as ever, allowing whatever
Horrors to come in the need of the night, and as rapidly coming
Rattled the heaviest eyes, a disturbed thought rang out forever:
Purpose, and true love, great revelations await; for the current
Moment, it must wait, though in a moment it shall be concurrent
Coming with this in interior face, for the what I have sworn, said,
Done, and decreed are to pass for the man in the grave who was born dead.
exhausted • finding an abandoned lilac garden
a dream of an angel • given three solemn instructions
awakened by Roman patrol • captured