I'm going to read two more poems from this book.
And then I'm going to try out on you two recent poems.
This poem is "On a Theme by Thomas Merton."
And that's its title.
"Adam, where are you?
God's hands palpate darkness, the void
that is Adam's inattention, his confused
attention to everything impassioned
by multiplicity, his despair.
Multiplicity, his despair.
God's hands enacting blindness.
Like a child at a barbaric fairgrounds, noise, lights,
the violent odors, Adam fragments himself.
The whirling rides.
Fragmented Adam stares.
God's hands unseen.
The whirling rides dazzle.
The lights blind him.
Fragmented.
He is not present to himself.
God suffers the void that is his absence."