Jerusalem from Ceremonies of the Spirit

She is the place of all my dreams
why can I not be there?
I entered her in sackcloth and ashes,
I departed in mourning,
weeping, kissing, taking with me
the heart of one of her true sons.
Good enough for him, why can’t I
be good enough for her?
Is my heart too pure for her blood-stained streets
or too fragile for the blood lust that she evokes?
Devoted to her vision,
I was humiliated, threatened and scorned
and yet no one succeeded in hurting me.
I laughed with joy
at the miracle of her very being,
her revenge on her destroyers,
from ashes she arose a celestial carrousel
now poems, now daggers,
now screams, now prayers.
I dream of her but she denies me.
I reach out for her
but she turns me away.
In the thin light of morning
I beseech her name and her pity.
When will I sit beside her moon-washed gates
and be enchanted by her midnight splendor?
When will I be able to touch her heart
and be touched by the secret
she guards so severely?
Must I wait until she is worthy
of a man of peace,
must I wait until I until I am
strong enough to stand against her,
to become equal to her danger
and demand that she be holy?

(c) Ceremonies of the Spirit 2009

A Writer's Life

The world, at least our world, seems to be breaking up into small colonies of the saved, as if we were entering a new Dark Age. If so, then perhaps the most important task we can set ourselves from here on out is to sustain, articulate, and preserve through literature the essential human values that early in the evolutionary history of our species distinguished us from our higher primate cousins—loving kindness, protection of the young, the weak, and the elderly, and consciousness of mortality.

Russell Banks;
from Burn This Book