God's Words

I want to say your name and make you live.
The breath is moving through and waits for me
To hum my throat and lift my loving tongue
And shape my lips to give your being mine.
Then other names of mine will know yours, too,
And they will learn to speak you as I do,
Announcing you, pronouncing you with love,
Your goodness given grammar in their care,
The mystery of your meaning coming true:
And why I am when they say "I love you."

Eternity arrived with your hello,
The day you came to be when you could say
The words that made mine want to reach your ear.
I want to say your name and make me yours.
"Go on," I say, but lack the will to speak.
I lack no wish and yet my lips are weak.
Repeat the unrepeatable -- create!
But all my words have spilled into a mess,
And while they make you think and make you cry,
They circle around my mind and, crumbling, die.

You have to hear before you dare to speak
The lightest words before the deepest speech.
You have to read before you hope to write
The life you want to put inside your love.

The streetcar rattles down in New Orleans
And takes you where the music covers sins.

I only wished to stop and say hello;
A moment may be all we have to know.
The wind that blows the hair across my face
Will carry, too, your laughter: wordless grace.