(When I wrote this I fondly imagined that I was

imitating the style of Gerard Manley Hopkins) 

(....Ah, Well...........)

 

PRECIPICE

 

Go away God!

Why didn`t you just leave us be, leave us gambol in the long grass there.
Half-tender our loves, lie our reciprocal lies, vend in love`s vestibule the body`s wares
What did you give her a heart for? Why did you give me a heart?

It was pity that probed, prised, peeled the pelts off,
My pity for her, her pity for me,
Aye, pity`s left us all antenna – all a-tremble - at the keen outside.

Oh, I know I`ve been made nifty since and nimble among the high crags.
But I`m razored on too raw an edge now, each way alongside the drops too steep,
And there`s grief down at the bottom of those gulfs there!

The Spirit when he breathed in me tensed me ten thousand ways. 
I`m blown crystal now, bloomed amethyst, much too delicately tuned.
And though the joy in great gusts goes buffeting round my brow,
And wide, steep, soars of azure call me lift off and be,
It`s the dread (Oh this dread!) drags at my feet.
I`ve been blown brittle and I`m flight-shy, lest I might cancel my commitment.
I`d topple! I`d fall! I`d shatter so fine I`d be blown dust! I`d scatter! I`d be nothing! I`d be gone!
 
Why won`t you go away God?