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John Lindley

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The Malleable God

I shovelled this shape from down deep,
soul searched and strip-mined,
bundled and tugged it through the factory gates,
hung it on two coat hooks
while I got the furnace hot.

I forged an idea of omnipotence
in a smithy of my fancy,
poured in the requisite radiance
and hammered him into usefulness.

He was huge and holy when I finished him.
As he cooled my workshop walls
grew hot as sin.
I wheeled him into the night
and the door frame trembled at his passing.

I saddled him as he was stirring
and, as the sky divided into dawn,
he split too; forked into the Holy Trinity.
I chose the Son and rode him like my luck.

I was thrown before breakfast,
hoofbeats and hymns growing fainter,
three Gods shrinking in the wilderness.
I walked all the way home

A promise though to meet again at sunset
to talk about old times: the Father
at the foundry gates when all was still new,
the Son crucified on two hooks
and the Ghost huffing in and out of the bellows
like the beliefs that you can never nail down.

 

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