without a queen the locust swarm   turned the ground to black   descending like a shadowy tower on a fish's back   and scattered the sticks who crawled   like snakes in the sand   as the red clay took the form of a lizard   who rushed like a moth to the flame of my open hand      [while, in my little world...]   a speckled bird humbly inspired   ran across the road when it could have flown   and it made me smile   at the water's edge, Babylon   we laid down and slept   as the river wept for you, O' Zion!   the stones cry out,   bells shake the sky   all creation groans...      SHHHH!!!      (honestly, be quiet a while -   particularly outside)      listen to it!      messes of men in farmer poverty;   not much for monks but we pretend to be   share a silent meal and a pot of chamomile   gypsies like us should be stamped in solidarity   I hold you in my fond but distant memory   while for the Mother Hen to gather me   who regretfully wrote,      "you have a decent ear for notes   but you can't yet appreciate harmony."      O' porcupine perched low in the tree   your eyes to mine:      "you'd be well inclined not to mess with me."      at the garden's edge beneath a speechless sky   as his friends all slept   Jesus wept – and now wonder   and now you say you wanna be set free?   and wanna set me free?   well I'm told that can only come from   a union with the One who never dies      [while, in my little world, I patched a plaster wall   and in my little world, I was waiting (just dying!)   to take offence at something   this is all there is in my sad little world]      in darkness a light shines   on you and on me      I never gathered figs from a thorny branch,   I never picked a grapefruit off a bramble bush   and for the past five – almost six years now! –   you know you haven't once looked at me   with kindness in your eyes   you say Judas is a brother of mine?   but sister in our darkness a light shines   and all I ever want to say for the rest of my life   is how that light is God,   and though I've been mistaken on this or that point,   that light is nevertheless God.