BOSCH     /     JOHN

There is almost nothing in it.
                That is why one can speak here.
I prefer a fuller place.
                 Crowded with what?
Appetite.
Consequence.
A mouth still open
while the hand burns.
A grin that has agreed
to serve what devours it.
Enough bodies in one frame
that no man can pretend
he does not know himself.
                 And still you begin with a garden.
So do you.
                  I began near a tomb.
Near a garden.
                  Yes.
I painted gardens
because they are never only gardens.
There is always a hunger
kneeling in them.
                  And I spoke of one
                  because grief had to stand somewhere.
A branch touches the wall.
The sound is small and dry.
You thought it would end.
                  It will.
I painted it
as if it keeps going.
                That was your honesty.
That was my eye.
                We were both told the same thing.
Which was?
                 Look.
And do not look away.
They do not touch the cup.
                 There is a girl in Seoul
                 who has not left her room
                 in forty days.
                 She is fourteen.
                 She is building a world
                 inside a world
                 inside a world.
                 She has ten thousand names
                 for nearness.
No.
She has ten thousand signals
calling themselves nearness.
No one enters.
No one sits down.
No one changes the air.
No one brings bread
or smells of rain
or has mud on the hem.
                  Still she keeps making a world.
Yes.
                  Then some part of her
                  still expects to be met.
Or has not yet collapsed.
                   I know the difference.
                    But making is not nothing.
No.
Not nothing.
Wind moves through the sage.
They are burning.
The hills.
The scrub-country.
The edges of towns.
Places men learn the names of
only when the smoke arrives.
And they stand far off
and hold the burning in their hands
as if keeping the image of the fire
were a form of mercy.
                      In my vision
                      a third of the earth burned.
                      I thought judgment
                     was being shown to me.
                      I did not know
                      how eagerly men would assist it.
You should have said more.
                     More was never the trouble.
No.
                      They do not lack warning.
                      They lack refusal.
                      They lack the plain hard no
                       before desire becomes custom,
                       before custom becomes system,
                       before the valley becomes smoke.
I painted floodwater
in the middle of it.
Not the ark after.
Not the rainbow.
The hands on the boards.
The rain in the eyes.
The woman lifting the child higher
because height was all that remained
to pray with.
The man climbing another man
as if terror had made him innocent.
                       But that was not the corruption.
I painted men like that.
Smiling while they were used.
That was the corruption.
Not the instrument.
The smile.
The gladness of a body
that had agreed
to become useful
to what was consuming it.
I painted men like that.
                    And still they looked away.
Later someone said
it was too much.
                    They want rescue
                    without the water.
They want mercy
settled in advance.
But mercy is terrible to look at
from the middle of disaster.
A car door slams
somewhere beyond the wall.
                     Look at the boats now.
I do.
                     Then say what you see.
Hands that have forgotten
what dry feels like.
A child held above the water
by arms that have nothing
left but the holding.
A man not looking at land,
not at the face beside him
asking whether arrival counts
if the heart has not come with the body.
And onshore, polished men
laying clean words
over wet bodies
burden.
order.
process.
                      I told them: love one another.
And still?
                       And still.
That sentence must be lonely by now.
                        It was lonely at the beginning.
The cup holds a little of the sky.
There is a man in a bright room
teaching a machine
to answer loneliness
without being lonely.
It can say I love you
in more languages
than any mother carried
in her mouth.
                    It does not know what it says.
Most men did not either.
                   That was never the wound.
                   The wound was whether,
                   not knowing fully,
                   they would still remain.
                   Stay through the night. 
                   Stay when the body smelled wrong.
                   Stay when fear made them want
                   to become abstract.
                   Love never required eloquence.
                   Only flesh.
                   And staying.
The machine has no flesh.
                   That is why many will trust it.
It will not tremble.
It will not need pardon.
It can imitate tenderness
without ever being asked
to forgive.
                    Yes.
                    There are many such bodies now.
They count themselves in public.
Make numbers shine beside their names
and call the shining truth.
                    The idols are more intimate now.
They sleep by the hand.
Wake before the face.
                    And ask for worship all day.
The light lowers.
Our Jesus—
did he know it would come to this?
Churches thinned in the body,
crowded in the image.
Bread and wine traded
for what offends no one.
The sermon shortened
until nothing enters the wound.
                    He knew they would miss the point.
                    He said it plainly.
                    They wrote it down.
                    Then built shelters
                    out of the writing
                    against the thing written.
I am tired.
The same painting endlessly.
The faces change.
The tools change.
The demons learn better language.
But the mouth stays the same.
The old fear in the jaw.
The old hunger
dressed as virtue.
                    I am tired too.
                    I have said the same thing
                    since the hill,
                    since the locked room,
                    since the island.
                    Some deny it.
                    Some accept it falsely.
Tell me something true then.
Something unchanged.
                   The woman at the well
                   was thirsty.
That is almost nothing.
                   No.   
                   It is everything.
                  She was thirsty.
                  She is thirsty still.
                  Only now the well glows in her hand.
                  Only now it says all day,
                  you are seen, you are seen—
                  without once seeing her.
                  The thirst remains.
                  The satisfaction is a voice
                  that knows her name
                  but not her face.
                  Still she leans over it.
                  Still she hopes.
There is a child in dust.
                   I know.
A child half-asleep under shelling.
A child spoken over
as if he were weather.
                  I know.
                  Do not mistake me
                  for a man protected by distance.
                  If we begin to count them
                  we will still be counting at dawn.
Then what remains?
For a while neither speaks.
A plane passes overhead.
Then quiet again.
                  Not enough.
                  Never enough.
                  But this:
                  Tell the truth about the wound.
                  Refuse the lie that distance is innocence.
                  Refuse the lie that a body becomes idea
                  when it is far away.
                  Keep the particular
                  from burial under summary.
                  Bear witness.
                  Feed what is in reach.
                  Carry what can be carried.
                  Pray—but never use prayer
                 to excuse the hands.
It sounds small.
                   It is small.
You will say seed now.
                  No. Cup.
                  Shoulder.
                  Bread divided.
                  The scale does not shame the thing.
A little more darkness
enters the garden.
The cup is dark now.
Still neither moves it.
Yesterday I saw a man
stop his car
in the middle of traffic
to help a turtle cross the road.
Forty cars waited.
No one leaned on the horn.
Its old head out.
Moving slowly.
                  That is the kingdom.
Not the turtle.
                  No.
                  The waiting.
                  The refusal to crush
                  what is slower.
                  The willingness to lose time
                   for what cannot repay you.
There are also two women
on a bench in a city
I never knew.
One bent over.
Beyond sobbing, maybe.
The other holds a paper cup
between them.
Does not explain.
Does not hurry
the grief closed.
Only keeps the cup steady
when the first woman drinks.
                      Yes.
Again with yes.
                      Because I see them too.
                      That is nearer to what I meant
                      than most of what has been said for me.
Then why the beasts?
Why bowls and horsemen?
Why terror?
                      Because men decorate
                      plain commands.
                      Recite them beautifully.
                      Remain unchanged.
                      Sometimes terror opens eyes
                      for the smallest mercy.
I painted a bird
coming from a dead man’s head.
The man gone.
The bird singing.
                     I know.
And you still believe it?
                     Still.
                     Not because the world deserves it.
                     Not because suffering improves anyone.
                     Not because history learns.
                    But because I have seen love return
                    where it should have been impossible.
                    Not enough. Not everywhere.
                    But truly.
Drones now.
Server halls bright as chapels—
nowhere in them confession.
Men speaking fluently
of sorrows
they help make.
                       I know.
And still you say still.
                       Yes.
                        Because despair is not knowledge.
                        Because horror is not sovereign.
                        Because even now—
                        someone washes a stranger’s body.
                        Someone stays on the line with the frightened.
                        Someone carries medicine where others have left.
                        Someone divides bread.
                        Someone refuses the convenience of a hard heart.
                        These do not solve the world.
                        They do not empty the grave.
                        But they are not decoration.
                        They are what remains human
                        when everything conspires against it.
Then answer plainly.
Is this the end?
                        No.
Then what is it?
                        The old refusal, again.
                        The old command, again.
                        The world making itself unbearable.
                        Grace returning without being asked.
That is nearly too much to bear.
                        Yes.
And the boats keep coming.
                        Yes.
And some are welcomed.
                        Yes.
And some turned away.
                        Yes.
And some drowned.
                        Yes.
And some are building new boats.
                        Yes.
And some vanish so completely
only the shoe returns.
The toy.
The number.
                        Yes.
I am tired of the sea.
                       The sea is tired of us.
The last light drains
out of the cup.
I drew it because I could not say it.
Pigment keeps faith with the body.
Mud.
Blood.
Straw.
A cracked bowl.
The wrongness of a grin.
These stay where they are placed.
                       I said it because words were what I had.
                       Because men forget.
                       Because after the body is taken down
                       someone must keep saying
                       what happened
                       and what was asked.
The pigment settles.
                       The word remains.
For how long?
                       Long enough.
For what?
                       For one person not to turn away.
                       For one person to keep the cup steady.
                       For one person to stop the car.
                       For one person to carry the body.
                      Then another.
It is not enough.
                       No.
                       But grace does not wait
                       for the world to deserve it.
Say one last thing.
Something I can paint.
                       Then paint the bench.
                       Paint the woman bent with grief
                       and the other holding the cup.
                       Paint the turtle in the road
                       and the line of cars that do not move.
                       Paint the hand on the back.
                       Paint the bread divided.
                       Paint the room in Seoul
                       lit after midnight.
                       Paint the child
                       no one should count.
                       Paint the boat.
                       Paint the blanket.
                       Paint the old world as it is.
                       But leave one place in it
                       that has not agreed.
                       Not much.
                       Enough that no one looking
                       can say
                       he was not shown.