The sadness of God

The sadness of God

('Tristesse de Dieu', Jules Supervielle)

Just as when it all began

I see you come and go 

on the trembling earth,

with one great difference:

my work is no longer mine:

I gave it all to you.

But if you're my people

misfortune is your own

and beyond my help.

All I could provide

to prove my warmth

was your tears, your strength.

The ache in your soul

is what’s left of me.

It was all I could do.

I can’t help the mother

whose son will die

but I can offer you light,

candles of hope.

If it were any different

do you think the narrow cot

would feel the weight

of the sickly child?

It’s as if my work

was someone else’s.

All that I made

slips farther away.

The stream that flows

down the mountain

has no thought of returning.

I have as much to say to you

as the potter to his pot:

one is deaf, the other 

speechless before his work. 

I can see you careening

towards terrible precipices

but I can’t point them out

let alone help you avoid them.

Like orphans in the the snow

you must save yourselves.

Every day,

behind my veil of silence,

I mutter to myself:

‘There’s someone else

making a mess

of what could so easily

be done well, or someone

stumbling blindly

because he hasn’t the patience

to look out. And why is she

leaning so far over the balcony?

Has she forgotten gravity?

Why hasn’t the pilot

checked his engine?’

All I can do is signal

my invisible farewell.

I know I’m repeating myself

but I can do nothing more for you.

I’m a fading memory,

you’re living in a memory

as you climb your hillsides

towards revelation.

Dismayed equally

by prayers and blasphemy

I’m everywhere at once

and nowhere.

Unmoving, I move

from heaven to heaven

like a wanderer inside myself,

a distracted hermit.

Long used to distance

I grow farther away,

straying in my mind

like a child in the forest.

I call out to myself,

haul myself in to my centre.

That’s why I made you,

to see it clearly,

to live in a body, I

who have no hands or face.

I want to thank you

for giving so much

to what will last so briefly

on our treasured earth,

my child, my darling,

O your God-given courage,

my son: ahead of me

you’ve gone 

roaming the world 

in my place, not clothed 

in invulnerable skin

but in your own poor body.

Each one of you knows

how to die, there’s no need

to learn, you know how to be

the perfect corpse

that can be rolled every which way

without fault.

God outlives you,

he alone survives the massacre.

Even alive, you die a little

as you go about your business,

your trembling loves.

You have a brain,

fingers to work the world

as you want it,  you can make 

reason and madness

parade in your cage,

you have all the animals I made,

you can run and swim

like dogs and fishes, creep

like the tiger or the week-old lamb,

you can bring death on yourselves

like the reindeer or the scorpion.

But I stay in my shell

utterly invisible,

and will never be found on earth.

Pity the God

who could not make you happy,

you who are

scraps of my own being,

sparks glittering in the air.

I offer you the brazier

and hope you find the fire.