for the indignatos (especially Emma)
If, instead of cowing and naying a sheepish congregation,
You beef so divinely it makes them feel human;
If you can tongue and bell with golden flesh a word
That tolls heaven back to earth, like the Eden in every bird;
If you can string the bow of learning to the arrow of intuition
And keep a faith that’s unafraid of critical reason
And score your heart in blood and swear it aloud
To a backwards-saddled, blinkered, farting holy-cattle crowd;
If you can shake the hand of the Am-Dram-thank-you-ham
Who lifts your tragic laurels with his prat Fall of Man;
If you’re wise to the one-book-brain of Simple Simon
Yet lost in the heart of a rose, not the tongue of a shaman;
If you can whittle your stake to an instrument that plays
A song beyond itself, not a reed that measures praise;
And forget yourself, and the long quest to get it,
In one divine delicious self-annihilating lyric;
If you can follow Hafiz, not twisting as others have
The mouth of God to a trap of lies, yet be roasted as if you had;
The hart of love will lead you tripping lamb-like to the Psalter
And, what is more, you’ll be a writer, my daughter.
