4 poems by Jonathan Chan

good morning.

the earth says shalom 

the dark begins to get into 
your eyes.

the fear of the Lord is clean,

disinfecting a plastic tongue. 

it compels the ingesting of a psalm a day. 

it compels the winding drive around 
a field, vitality still wound, silver
moonlight felt on blades of grass. 

it compels the bodies to lurch toward
the floodlights. 

you versus you. God versus me. 

a throng fights its way over highways
and boarded paths of mud.

condensation diffuses into sweat.

a sunday breaks into hazy clouds, 
curling into purple and blue. 

incarnation is a daily practice. 

you leave a church to break 
a ritual language. 

praise God who turns our grief to light.

heat rises from beneath the crust
of the earth. the slabs of concrete 
warm the centres of your palms.

salt is crusted on the skin. 

your head throbs too hard to recognise
its wilderness. 

walking in the carnal heat,
a muscle twists, one in the calf,
one in the foot.

it marinates the stale air. 

weeping carries on by the rivers.

you shudder at the power of the dog.

no hounds can resist a scratch on the belly.

each morning you resist the bitterness. 
you ask to be carried into the heat by
a different kind of spirit. 

time refuses to bend.

an enclosure of limestone stands
by the tabernacle

up from the rainbow steps,
bats circle the clearing, out
through the crawling leaves
and into the gasp of light. 

a devotee holds a
a starving for the sacred.

a sceptic weighs
the insistence of belief 

Johar Buang says the poet’s
dove is still wandering. 

it is looking for the dimensions
of God. 

a soul continues to wait,
more than watchmen along 

the morning. a memory of
prayer is itself a prayer. 

i tether myself to submission. 

a twinkling is found in
the brightness of blue. 

an inkling is found in 
a slightness of song. 

always i carry the silence.

always i carry the light.

familiar with 
sickness, blood

breaks over
the brow, postlude

to a moistened
heel. stirring

bodies submit
to the ache

of night. 
disfiguration 

dawns on splintered 
wood. a lone body 

hanging in strips. 
atonement holds

in the reception
of violence. 

the bishop sketches
a severance. chemical,

like Turing. physical,
like Van Gogh. 

‘rejection’, he says,
‘rejection’. the

untenanted cross is
veiled 

in a mournful sash.
vestments folded.

altar denuded. kneeling
in an unnameable 

place, the air splits
in a thousand directions. 

i. 
before you there is a dog. 
it moves seamlessly from
bitumen to grass. its eyes
flash above a collarless neck. 
it draws near enough to the touch,
its furs grey 
and black. it bears neither 
tooth nor sound.
away it weaves through the
fumes of taxis and trucks.

ii.
before you is a cloud. 
a titanic cloud. it drifts, 
cutting through blue air. 
it swells and swallows every 
wisp within it. it is enough 
to make you crane your neck
and realise the smallness
of your body. that somehow 
the undulating cement path 
before you that rises and
falls and writes itself on
the soles of your feet will
lead you on to 
nowhere. 

iii.
before you is a compressor.
and another. its guileless twin. 
there is a creep of mold 
across their plastic faces. 
they once caught a crash 
of lightning and sputtered 
a passing final breath. 
they once choked beneath 
the weight of lizard eggs.
the compressor is political, 
you learn, swallowing the breath 
of hot air, calibrated carefully
from central control. by a hundred, 
thousand, million grades, it exhales
an archipelagic or peninsular 
cool. a small price to expel 
the languidness of  
midday. 

iv.
before you is a sunset. 
figured in visions of orange
pink, or blue. gashed across 
the canvas of light. garish
and crisp. an hour that burns
in golden eyes. it, too, will 
leave you feeling small.
smallness is a precondition
for sensing the sublime.
the particles and 
rays that dance are 
not yet choked by ash. 
you find a patch discrete 
to hold a prayer. a silent wail 
preempts a later grief. 
like the brevity of a blue insect 
or the pile of desiccated leaves. 
like how the flick of every
switch from now on can
only portend a crisis.  

v.
before you the patch
of grass is dry.

before you, there is
a well-worn patch
of belief.   

i remembered this morning how
God numbers the days. cryptography
of an overcast sky, a fading shade of
blue peeking through a tall panel.
sitting in a nondescript chapel, dyed
glass plies a limping body. light through
stigmatised wounds. the whispers of
early witnesses land like a thud.
recollections of a younger youth.
of integrity. of contemplation. an
organist susses out the sound through
the tubes. “all shall be well,” you hear
from Norwich, hand closing around
a hazelnut. “all manner of thing
shall be well,” you hear in Little
Gidding, suspension of the
midwinter spring. revelations rest
above the steam of rooibos. the
changing seasons rest on a clot
of grey. outside, the fabled bright
fields hurtle by. a moment of pause
nestles in a train. red petals are
sprinkled in a sea of green. an
announcement interrupts a
platform devotion. up the hills,
under the bridges, past the
townhouses, around the
shops, a walk is made beside
God. the making is in the
walking.