The Scent of God

(This poem is dedicated to Beryl Singleton Bissell, whose book of this name reveals her love affair and sometime contretemps with God. I thank her for graciously consenting to a poetic adoption of her wonderful book title. The poet makes no claim of representing her thoughts; these are his own.) The Scent of God To speak of deity is automatic blasphemy inside the gallery of man. Here pontificates the power beyond the stars, who listens in when his creation cries and sighs and tactfully reminds him of the plight of poor benighted creatures on that speck of dust that floats upon the milky way... this grand old man between the galaxies who loves and hates according to the chirps on planet earth...the triune spirit who with cosmic skill unleashes lightning on his enemies, salvation on his friends, and tomblike mystery to shroud his everlasting court. He is thought to come some day, but in the interim, a sometime friend who dwells quite far away for most of us just sighs.......until our eyes turn far off from the skies, our cup is emptied of his blood, and we consent to do the listening. Thereupon, the tongue is bound, the breath will bear Jerusalem unbreathed, the senses yield but for a single vapor on the air, the everlasting mystery ineffable and undefinable, that is the scent of God. ~ ____