Just this once

Amar Shah · Just this once

And shredding, rending part the curtain, God
declared this valiant, strident claim: No.
No, he was not first, but he shall be
the last. No longer will my children die
upon each other's hands, not murdered any
longer, murdered not for blame. They murder
even blameless, that's what they've blamed him for.
Not even God can understand. Inscrutable.

I've had it. I've had it. Throw up My massive, clumsy
Arms, and raise my Voice to Heaven, shout
I've had it. What were YOU thinking? What would YOU have
Me do? I came here, I am here, only for YOUR Work.
Give Me a Sign, give anything YOU can.

I've had it. I've had it out so many times,
floods and droughts and quaking earths. I've signed
them off to demon kings. I've let them go
to slaughter, to bake and brown and burn, contorted,
forgotten pretzels, in the ovens of
the Reich. I've broken rules. I give you miracles
you can't deny. I show Myself, I've shown
Myself, my Power shown to prophets on
the mount. I've let them see, at least a couple,
the truth of Me, unintelligible. Inscrutable.
Just once, just once, I say, oh just this...
Once,
I made it rain. At the BackWerk in
the station, round the corner, across the bridge,
I made it rain, I said, let's make it rain.
On the day when everything, when everything
went wrong. The debit card, corporeal form,
incarnation of my generational
wealth, refused to scan, refused to speak,
just lay there, mum and dumb, and clutching, coupled
to its hidden, sparkling millions. On the day
the hero teacher, one who looked a bit
like Bowie, the one who spoke an English comforting
my precious child, was absented by urgent
questing counter to a virus or a microbe
or somesuch. The day when power struggles at
the office had exploded, no certainty with me
I'd keep my job, my residency in city,
country of my refuge.
Make it rain,
I said to daughter, puzzled always by
this poet Dad, hopeful that she'd score
a pink and sprinkled donut and a juice.
There we stood, before the boards of self-same
bakery—and helped ourselves to anything we wanted,
to anything our hearts desired, no wish
held back, no secrets from our Baker God.

I made it rain. Would it were enough.
The Crown was weighting, heavy on My Head,
askance. I called to My Own GOD and said,
Enough. I am Enough. I am Enough.
With YOU I have enough. I'd have enough
if I were beggar underneath the bridge.

I kept my job, it was the other guy
who had to go. I found my guardians, the leaders
I could trust, who'd steady me if things
got rough. I grew in stature, influence,
became fulfilled to show my proper potence.
The kitchen was installed, the debts paid off,
the sulking, griping card bypassed—no swipe
for you. The child sprouting, miracle, a second
tongue, a matter of just months, and now
a budding poet she in double speak.

It was that once. When taken, tasked, when maxed
out to the end, cried out for God the Baker,
show me that you love me, give me anything
You can. God the Baker, One who fed
His people on the mount, who feeds His people
bread, the body of the sacrificed,
the heart ripped out of chest. O God the Baker,
comfort me.
Who was there to comfort
God? When He had had enough? No flood,
no drought nor raging thunder'd do the job?
He called to His own gods, the guardians
of space and time, the rules He fixed Himself,
the axioms that in this universe
can't alter. He called upon the structure and
He said,
Give Me Anything YOU Can.
The Godhead's gods protested: WE GAVE YOU UNIVERSE
TO PLAY, WITHOUT IT MAKING NEVER MEANING,
NO CHANCE OF ORDER, SENSE NOR SOUND, NO POET-
RY, NO, WE CANNOT, DON'T KNOW HOW TO GIVE
YOU LESS. And God replied, Just once,
just once a glitch, just once a rupture in
the Order, just once a win against the steady
Death, just once a crack in Elemental,
Cosmic Law. Please understand. I cannot
send another flood or yet a famine,
another terrifying force of rape
and plague and murder, I can't do it again.
Give me something new to work with. I've
chained them, taken them from bondage. I've killed
their first-born, made them climb a mountain, just
to plunge the blade themselves. I couldn't do it.
Listen, I have no lessons left to give,
but still they haven't learned. Just give me something
new to work with, we'll call it glitch, we'll never
speak about it, we will force the scientists,
admit it never happened. Just please, oh please,
just break the rules, for Me, just once.
So spake,
so pleaded desperate God, delivered by
the Master, oratory passioned, nearly
earthly Voice of One who Knows that even
when the clocks are spinning down to null,
even then, the game's not over. Launch
that ball across the court, Hail, Mary,
hail Mary, Mother of God! Give us
a miracle. I will take anything.
I'll take it, gimme what you got, I want it
all.