henrik nordbrandt

i'm back reading this after listening in to an interesting discussion last night between the FY1s about the place of religion where medicine can't help (and how both fail)

Mercury

The streak of moon over the sea between tall
buildings
reminds me of mercury, that strange metal
that has fallen down to earth from a colder world
where they use it to make pictures of their gods.
All the mercury we pour into thermometers, I thought:
it must be enough to fill a lake so vast no one could
see across it.
And wouldn't it be better, after all, if we used it this
way
instead of wasting that beautiful metal in assholes
--if we let the hopelessly sick walk back and forth
on the surface of that lake, in their hospital gowns
and some in handicap vans, thin and shaking from
fever
and each one assisted by at least two nuns of the order
with the big white hats that look like tea clippers?
And even if it were their last stroll
still I wonder if they wouldn't think of it as a
meaningful death
to give our lives meaning, we who would stand on
the bank
and follow them with half-pitiful, half-envious looks
when they walked out like Christ on the luminous
lake, waving
their blood-stained handkerchiefs.

trans thom satterlee