"God of the impertinent exile..."

Hagar in the Wilderness

Tyehimba Jess

 

 

Carved Marble. Edmonia Lewis, 1875

My God is the living God,

God of the impertinent exile.

An outcast who carved me

into an outcast carved

by sheer and stony will

to wander the desert

in search of deliverance

the way a mother hunts

for her wayward child.

God of each eye fixed to heaven,

God of the fallen water jug,

of all the hope a vessel holds

before spilling to barren sand.

God of flesh hewn from earth

and hammered beneath a will

immaculate with the power

to bear life from the lifeless

like a well in a wasteland.

I'm made in the image of a God

that knows flight but stays me

rock still to tell a story ancient as

slavery, old as the first time

hands clasped together for mercy

and parted to find only their own

salty blessing of sweat.

I have been touched by my God

in my creation, I've known her caress

of anointing callus across my face. 

I know the lyric of her pulse

across these lips...  and yes,

I've kissed the fingertips

of my dark and mortal God.

She has shown me the truth

behind each chiseled blow

that's carved me into this life,

the weight any woman might bear 

to stretch her mouth toward her

one true God, her own

beaten, marble song.

Edmonia Lewis (1845-1907) was an African/Native American expatriate sculptor who was phenomenally successful in Rome. 

  

Copyright © 2013 by Tyehimba Jess.

Tyehimba Jess is the author ofleadbelly (Wave Books, 2005). He teaches at the College of Staten Island in New York City.